HouseCanary is pushing ahead with its national home listings program with Google while its Chapter 11 restructuring grows more complex, with new court filings detailing a fight over tens of millions of dollars in secured debt and the company’s efforts to protect critical data feeds and MLS access.
The increasingly influential proptech company filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sept. 22 in New Jersey and has continued operating as it works toward what it says will be a full-pay reorganization plan.
On Thursday, CEO Chris Rediger also said HouseCanary had signed a national agreement with Google tied to a listings initiative first announced earlier this year.
Google deal lands amid Chapter 11
Speaking Thursday at RISMedia’s CEO & Leadership Exchange and in a subsequent LinkedIn post, Rediger said HouseCanary had “recently signed a national agreement with Google” that will expand the companies’ home-listings program nationwide.
The agreement formalizes a rollout that HouseCanary and Google first discussed publicly in June, when HouseCanary said it was working with Google to expand the program across the country after an initial launch in select markets.
A HouseCanary spokesperson told Inman Thursday that the agreement largely puts the previously announced arrangement into formal terms and that the listings program is expected to expand nationwide in the coming weeks. The company declined to provide a signing date or disclose additional terms of the agreement.
The program places listings from participating multiple listing services into Google mobile search results, with HouseCanary providing infrastructure for the initiative through its ComeHome platform and agreements with participating MLSs.
HouseCanary’s website currently lists Bright MLS, California Regional MLS, My State MLS, Permian Basin Board of Realtors, REcolorado and San Diego MLS as participating organizations.
HouseCanary seeks to cut $43M secured claim to $85K
In a filing submitted Wednesday night, HouseCanary asked the bankruptcy court to estimate the secured portion of a roughly $43 million claim held by lenders Structural Capital Investments III, Series Structural DCO II and CEOF Holdings, with Ocean II PLO acting as agent.
HouseCanary is asking the court to determine that just $85,061.56 of the claim is secured, leaving approximately $42.9 million as an unsecured deficiency claim. The company does not dispute that it defaulted on the underlying loan, a credit facility of up to $30 million entered into in 2021 and later amended six times.
According to a declaration filed by Structural Capital managing partner Kai Tse in related state-court litigation, the claim includes $30 million in principal, about $4.3 million in accrued interest, roughly $8.5 million in late fees, expenses and other charges, and about $199,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs.
HouseCanary argues that Structural does not have a general lien on the company’s intellectual property or on claims and proceeds tied to its Texas litigation against Amrock. A Texas jury awarded HouseCanary $175 million in compensatory damages in March after finding Amrock misappropriated its trade secrets and defrauded the company.
HouseCanary instead values Structural’s collateral at $55,061.56 in cash, $10,000 in computers and equipment, and $20,000 in other contracts and intangible assets. It assigns no value to approximately $1.4 million in accounts receivable, arguing those receivables depend on HouseCanary continuing to provide services using intellectual property outside Structural’s collateral.
“Structural has a lien on milk, but not the cow,” HouseCanary’s attorneys wrote in the filing.
Structural scheduled a public foreclosure auction of HouseCanary collateral for Sept. 22, the same day HouseCanary filed for Chapter 11. HouseCanary unsuccessfully sought a temporary restraining order in California state court to stop the auction, arguing the sale process was commercially unreasonable.
HouseCanary says it intends to file a full-pay reorganization plan and that determining the secured portion of Structural’s claim is critical to proving the plan is feasible. Its interim bankruptcy financing requires the company to confirm a Chapter 11 plan within 60 days of its filing.
A hearing on the request is scheduled for Oct. 20.
HouseCanary moves to protect MLS access, data feeds
HouseCanary is also seeking court protection for the contracts, licenses and data relationships it says are essential to keeping the company operating during bankruptcy.
In a separate expedited motion scheduled to be heard Thursday afternoon, HouseCanary said at least one contract counterparty attempted to terminate its agreement with the company within 48 hours of the Chapter 11 filing solely because of the bankruptcy.
HouseCanary said the counterparty ultimately agreed to continue providing service after communications with the company and its advisers. The company is now asking the bankruptcy court to reinforce protections preventing counterparties from terminating certain agreements solely because of the bankruptcy filing.
Its proposed order specifically references licenses, memberships, MLS participation or access rights, listing-data feeds and other data services. HouseCanary said losing a data stream, information system or technology platform for even a few days could materially impair the bankruptcy estate.
The company is also seeking protections for its real estate licenses, which it says are critical to its operations and reorganization.
Thursday’s hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern time. HouseCanary’s second-day hearing is scheduled for Oct. 20, when the court is also set to consider the company’s request to estimate Structural’s secured claim.
