RentPath Inc., owner of the popular rental sites Apartment Guide and Rent.com, has acquired rental marketplace Lovely for $13 million in cash.
Lovely, which launched as a rental search site in its hometown of San Francisco in 2011 and nationwide in 2012, has taken steps recently to become a full-service rental platform for both landlords and renters. In November, it acquired payment processing firm Rentmatic and began partnering with Experian to streamline the credit report portion of renters’ applications.
Like its rental startup competitors Cozy and Zumper, Lovely, which has both Android and iOS mobile apps, was becoming a site for renters to search for, apply for and pay for apartments, and for landlords to find and screen renters and collect payment for the rental homes they manage.
The Lovely acquisition grows RentPath’s stable of housing-related sites, which include Apartment Guide, Rent.com, Rentals.com, RentalHouses.com and New Home Guide, that together collect 7 million monthly unique visitors, according to Norcross, Ga.-based RentPath.
In February, Apartment Guide, with a market share of 1.88 percent and 6 million hits, and Rent.com, with a market share of 1.41 percent and 4.4 million hits, were the sixth and seventh most popular real estate sites, respectively, on desktop computers, according to Experian Marketing Services.
“Lovely has done an amazing job at designing products for desktop and mobile devices that simplify the renting process and offer innovative solutions for renters and property managers,” said Charles Stubbs, CEO of RentPath, in a statement.
“This acquisition illustrates RentPath’s commitment to delivering the best consumer experience and redefining how renters find the perfect place to live.”
Lovely co-founders Blake Pierson and Doug Wormhoudt will continue to lead Lovely’s operation from San Francisco.
Promotional video highlighting how landlords and property managers could use the Lovely platform.