Yellow Pages has announced that they have acquired popular Montreal-based real estate networking website ComFree — or DuProprio in French — for $50 million. The deal will take effect July 1st.
ComFree is a for-sale-by-owner, commission-free real estate network. It is the fourth most visited real estate website in Canada and the top site in Quebec, holding a 17 per cent share of the province’s listings market.
“The acquisition of ComFree/DuProprio grows Yellow Pages into a leading digital real estate marketplace, extending our reach of Canadian home buyers and sellers and strongly positioning the Company to monetize consumer audiences within this sector,” Yellow Pages CEO Julien Billot stated in a release.
The deal comes just one week after Zoocasa, another online Canadian real estate brokerage, announced it would shut down operations effective June 22nd. The Rogers-affiliate was reportedly losing about $1 million a month for much of the last two years. ComFree, on the other hand, had revenues that surpassed $40 million in 2014, with sales climbing 20 per cent over the past three years.
Indeed, it’s been an interesting month for Canadian real estate.
