From left: PropertyShark founder Matthew Haines and Gordon Morrell, Yardi’s executive vice president and COO
Yardi Systems, a 28-year-old California-based company that specializes in software for real estate investment and property management, announced today that it has acquired New York City-based data Web site PropertyShark.com and plans to expand the site into other real estate markets, including Florida.
Yardi said it plans to integrate PropertyShark.com’s real estate data into the Yardi suite of software, but that initially at least, PropertyShark.com will remain as an independent Web site. The current staff will remain in place in their Brooklyn office, said Gordon Morrell, Yardi’s executive vice president and COO. In fact, more staff will be hired as the company expands.
“The intent is to help them grow from a regional database to a national database,” said Morrell, who did not disclose the price of the acquisition. Expansion plans have not yet been pinned down, but Morrell said the Florida market is “definitely” on the company’s radar.
While PropertyShark.com will provide useful information to clients of Yardi, those clients will be also able to feed information to PropertyShark.com’s database, he said, though the details of how that will work haven’t yet been worked out.
“The data would flow both ways,” Morrell said.
A few months ago, Yardi Systems purchased two then defunct real estate publications, Multi-Housing News and Commercial Property Executive, with plans to re-launch them. Morrell said that acquisition is not related to this one.
“That was more because we hate to see them go,” he said of the magazine purchases. “We’re generally not an acquisitive company, but if opportunities come along, we certainly take a look.”
In the case of PropertyShark.com, he said, “we really liked the company and we’d like to help them with growth.”
Yardi also recently purchased RentGrow, a Massachusetts-based tenant screening Web site.
Launched in 2002, PropertyShark.com changed the real estate landscape in New York City with its ownership information and search capabilities.
PropertyShark.com staff members forwarded requests for comment to a Yardi spokesperson.
But in a statement released by the Yardi, PropertyShark Founder Matthew Haines said: “When I founded PropertyShark in 2002, I wanted access to the hard-to-reach property information held by sellers, city agencies and brokers so I could make informed decisions about real estate investments I was considering. To see the concept taken from one neighborhood in New York City into the hands of one of the largest and most successful real estate software companies is a victory for everyone involved in buying, managing, and selling real estate based on transparent and comprehensive research.”