Step 1 of 5 · 2005–08

Map search for people already shopping

A search engine for homes for sale

Trulia began as a search product for people already house hunting. Pete Flint and Sami Inkinen started it while Flint was at Stanford TR1 TR4. When they asked brokers for listing feeds, none existed, so Trulia built a search engine that indexed listings directly from broker and agent websites and sent visitors back to those sites in return ZLX-2. It placed the homes on Google Maps and added price heat maps by 2006, then commute times, crime data and demographics TR4.

The choice made Trulia good at one job: comparing homes and neighborhoods before calling an agent TR4. It also set who came. In 2011 Flint said Trulia's users were "much more transactionally focused than they are checking out home values" TR2. They were worth a lot to agents (step 3), but they were only the people in the market at that moment, and what they came for, a list of homes for sale, was something any portal could assemble.

Rivals Zillow launched four months later, on February 8, 2006, with an estimated value on about 40 million U.S. homes, for sale or not, and drew its one millionth visitor two days later ZLX-2 ZI2.

Aggregator Strategy

Step 4 of 5 · 2012–14

Outspent in a marketing war, then agreed to sell

Independence, then a marketing war

Trulia chose to stay independent. Zillow proposed combining in late 2011 and again in August 2012; Trulia declined, expecting more value from growing alone and from its own IPO, which came in 2012 at a valuation of about $500 million GFA-4 ZLX-2. In 2013 it bought Market Leader, software for real estate professionals, to sell agents more than advertising; Rascoff argued that a company integrating a large acquisition is not innovating ZLX-4.

By then both sites showed the same listings, so more visitors had to be bought ZLX-2. Zillow doubled its advertising to about $40 million in 2013 and planned $65 million for 2014; Trulia planned $45 million and presented its marketing as the more authentic approach ZLX-8. Flint later said the contest stopped being about product and became a marketing battle ZLX-9. In June 2014 comScore counted 27.4 million unique visitors to Trulia against 46.0 million to Zillow ZLX-7. The larger audience earned more from agents for the next campaign.

Selling to the rival

Trulia's board had set up a committee to weigh a sale in November 2013 GFA-4. When Barton proposed again in June 2014, the board cited growing competition and the marketing and product costs of scaling alone, and decided not to approach other buyers GFA-4. The deal was announced on July 28, 2014 TR3. Flint says both companies knew the market was hard to defend because agents listed everywhere, so the merger was a drive for scale ZLX-2.

Rivals Zillow outspent Trulia and then paid for its audience rather than keep fighting for it; Rascoff said Zillow chose Trulia over Realtor.com because Trulia's brand was still growing ZLX-8 GFA-5.

Step 5 of 5 · 2015–

A second brand inside Zillow Group

The sale closed in February 2015. It was paid in stock, so its value moved from $3.5 billion at announcement to $2.5 billion at close, and Trulia's holders owned about a third of the combined company ZLX-5 TR3. Zillow Group kept Trulia as a consumer brand, with former chief operating officer Paul Levine as its president, and cut about 350 overlapping sales and administrative positions TR3. From September 2015 an agent bought one Premier Agent placement and appeared on both sites ZLX-10. About a third of Trulia's agent customers had not advertised on Zillow, and they now had one relationship instead of two ZLX-9.

The sale was a large outcome for Trulia's founders and investors and ended the independent contest. It follows from step 1. Trulia built its search for people already shopping, over listings that every portal carried within a few years. Zillow's reason to visit, the value of any home, was its own, and the audience built on it paid for the marketing war Trulia lost. Trulia continues as one of Zillow Group's home search brands.

Rivals Zillow kept its lead after the merger: in 2025 roughly 80% of its traffic came directly to its apps and sites, after CoStar outspent it about four to one on Homes.com advertising in 2023 without taking that lead ZI10 ZLX-11.