By Staff Report Thursday, October 11th, 2012

Online real estate company Move has purchased Relocation.com, a marketplace for homebuyers, renters and moving and storage professionals, for $11.5 million in cash.

Move, which also operates Realtor.com and Move.com, said the deal represents another step towards its ultimate goal of creating a one-stop online shop for home buyers and renters.

“Our goal is to create the leading online marketplace for real estate related information and services,” Move CEO Steve Berkowitz said in a news release. “Bringing Relocation.com under the Move umbrella and merging it with our Moving.com business extends our value to consumers by increasing the resources and tools at their disposal. At the same time, it extends our value to the industry by giving the 40 million Americans who move each year more reasons to engage with us.”

Move’s corporate headquarters are in Campbell, but the company maintains the bulk of its offices for its sales, engineering, finance, legal and human resources staff in Westlake Village.
Relocation.com is an online resource for people preparing to move to a new home or apartment, Move said, and the service works with pre-screened and licensed moving, auto transport and storage companies.

Move said it will pay $9.5 million of the purchase price at deal closing, with the remaining $2 million to be paid in two installments at the first and second anniversaries of the transaction. The deal is expected to be accretive to fourth quarter 2012 earnings and 2013 earnings, it said. Move turned a profit last year, of $7.6 million, for the first time since 2006.

Move’s shares climbed 1.3 percent in morning trading on Oct. 11 following the deal announcement.