Zillow buys Trulia for $3.5 billion

House-hunting website Zillow just became rival Trulia's landlord. And Trulia's shares shot up 12 percent Monday when news broke that Zillow is closing on Trulia's turf for $3.5 billion, according to CNNMoney.
 
The companies' combined 130 million monthly visitors will still have two separate websites for house-hunting and each site will maintain the tools that consumers have come to rely on, such as value calculators and neighborhood rankings.
 
Zillow and Trulia are credited with making the housing market more accessible to consumers by sharing information that was previously available to only real estate agents. Now agents pay to have their names and listings posted on the sites.

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