Zillow and Trulia are two of the largest online real estate listings that millions of people use to sell, buy or rent a home. And today Zillow said it is acquiring Trulia for $3.5 billion  in a “stock-for-stock” transaction and expects to close by 2015  according to this press release.  With this acquisition Zillow will become the largest online real estate company. Interestingly, both companies are expected to work under their own brands. But, what does that mean for realtors and real estate agents?

Last week Bloomberg broke the news about a probable merger between the two online real estate companies. With this mega merger the two online real estate gaints expect to combine their pooled resources to innovate, get greater access to real estate market data  and cut costs as they point out in the press release.

Pete Flint and Sami Inkinen started San Francisco-based Trulia in 2005. Apparently the  idea for Trulia came from their personal  experiences of trying to find a place to rent in SF bay area.

Seattle-based Zillow was founded in 2006 in Seattle by  Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, who formerly worked for Microsoft. They tried to sell homes by auction, but that  turned out to be a disaster as Barton shared in this interview.