Homestore
Stuart Wolff founded the online real estate company Homestore Inc. in 1996.[21][22] He established a partnership with the National Association of Realtors, and his company, RealSelect Inc., operated Realtor.com. Under the agreement, the National Association of Realtors had a small stake in RealSelect.[22]
The company went public as Homestore.com, Inc. in 1999,[6] and was traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange.[23] In October 2000, Homestore agreed to purchase Move.com from Cendant Corp. for $761 million in stock, leaving Cendant with a 15 percent stake.[24][25][26] In 2001, Homestore operated the websites HomeBuilder.com, HomeFair.com, Realtor.com, HomeWrite.com, and SpringStreet.com, acquired HomeBid, and owned the software Top Producer as well as Wyldfyre technologies.[27][28] In August, the company purchased iPlace Inc., for $150 million.[29]
During the rise of the dot-com bubble, Wolff was convicted of insider trading and falsifying revenue results, and several additional executives received prison sentences for inflating earnings.[30] Homestore's 2000 and 2001 financial reports required refiling, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigated the company in 2002.[21][22] Wolff's conviction was overturned on appeal in 2008,[21] but he eventually plea bargained for a sentence of 3–5 years.[31] Wolff resigned as CEO in January 2002,[21] and was replaced by a new management team.[22]
Homestore.com, Inc. changed its name to Homestore, Inc. in 2002, then rebranded as Move, Inc. in 2006.[6][30][32] The company's stock symbol was changed from "HOMS" to "MOVE", and the Move.com website was launched in May 2006.[33]
On February 22, 2006 Homestore, Inc. announced the acquisition of Moving.com from TMP Directional Marketing, LLC. Moving.com provides consumers with offers from qualified movers, truck rental, and self-storage providers, as well as access to a sophisticated mortgage rates directory. Mirus Capital Advisors represented TMP Directional Marketing and Moving.com in the transaction.[34]
Move, Inc.
Move acquired the company Threewide, which operated the real estate listing service ListHub, for $13 million in September 2010. Move retained ListHub as its own separate brand.[35] Move launched an online mortgage offering called MortgageMatch.com in December 2010, targeting first time home buyers and those looking to refinance,[36] then acquired the social search platform SocialBios in 2011.[37] In 2013, Move reported $227 million in revenue and $600,000 in profit.[8] Move ended its three-year partnership with AOL real estate in December 2013, and its decade-long partnership with MSN Real Estate in July 2014.[38]
In September 2014, News Corp agreed to purchase Move for $950 million, marking the former company's largest acquisition to date.[4]
