Realselect Inc

RealSelect Inc., operator of Realtor.com, the nation's No. 1 real estate site on the Internet, announced the acquisition of Dallas-based New Home Search Systems, operator of NewHomeSearch.com, a Web site specializing in newly constructed homes. The company said the acquisition is a key link in RealSelect's strategy and previously announced partnership with the National Assn. of Home Builders to develop a new homes Internet site. That new site, Homebuilder.

RealSelect Inc., operator of Realtor.com, the nation's No. 1 real estate site on the Internet, announced the acquisition of Dallas-based New Home Search Systems, operator of NewHomeSearch.com, a Web site specializing in newly constructed homes. The company said the acquisition is a key link in RealSelect's strategy and previously announced partnership with the National Assn. of Home Builders to develop a new homes Internet site. That new site, Homebuilder.

RealSelect Inc. in Thousand Oaks, an online real estate information service, has appointed Mike Buckman president and chief operating officer. Buckman is replacing Richard Janssen, who will remain on the board of directors. "Mike Buckman's experience at Worldspan in managing a fast-growing technology-based service company will help RealSelect to achieve our goal of providing world-class technology, customer service and operations," said Stuart Wolff, RealSelect chairman and CEO.

America Online and RealSelect Inc. in Thousand Oaks have reached an agreement expanding their relationship--RealSelect will be the exclusive home-listings service on AOL, AOL.COM, CompuServe and Digital City. The agreement expands a multiyear, multimillion-dollar agreement announced in April 1998, which made Realtor.com AOL's exclusive provider of existing home listings. As part of the expanded relationship, RealSelect's Internet sites--Realtor.com, HomeBuilder.com and CommercialSource.

RealSelect Inc. in Thousand Oaks and SpringStreet Inc. based in San Francisco have agreed to merge in an all-stock transaction. The combined companies will offer consumers an online home-buying and rental service. SpringStreet will join the RealSelect Network, which includes Realtor.com, HomeBuilder.com and CommercialSource.com. There are more than 1.25 million homes for sale on Realtor.com, 6 million rental units on SpringStreet and 12,800 builders on HomeBuilder.com.

Entrepreneurs who have used new technology to create successful companies will be speakers at the second Los Angeles Times Small Business Strategies Conference on Sept. 24-25. They include: * Keith L. Black, director of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's neurological institute, chairman of the neurosurgery department at UC Irvine's medical school and founder of Medlennium Technologies. * Sky Dayton, EarthLink Network's founder. * Howard E. "Ted" Greene Jr.

Whenever a company gives away large sums of cash, you can assume business is pretty good. Take RealSelect Inc., which recently cut a quarter-million-dollar check to a Virginia man to use toward the purchase of a new home. Since starting up three years ago, the Thousand Oaks-based online real estate company has not only witnessed a tremendous surge in business, it has begun to change the way the industry does business by providing the world's largest listings of available homes via the Internet.

Venture capital investments in Southern California surged to a record $289.7 million in the third quarter, up 47% from the second-quarter total of $197.2 million and 15% higher than $251.2 million a year earlier, PricewaterhouseCoopers reported. A total of 27 firms received financing in the latest quarter in the region, which encompasses Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

For most consumers, a home is the most complex, important and costly purchase they will ever make. For Internet companies, that just makes the multitrillion-dollar residential real estate market--and all the things that go with buying, selling and owning a home--all the more attractive. Online real estate firms are now battling to build the most comprehensive site with the biggest brand and the most extensive distribution network.

An important new interactive shopping tool for consumers has sprung to life with the official launch last week of the Internet's biggest Web site for buyers of newly built homes: Homebuilder.com. The Web site (at http://www.homebuilder.com) combines the new home production, floor plans and site elevations of more than 7,000 builders in 63 markets with the sophisticated software and graphics of RealSelect Inc., the company that runs the largest resale homes listing site, Realtor.com (http://www.

In the dot-com universe of the late 1990s, most companies were built on inflated hope and little else. But Homestore.com was supposed to be different. Founded in 1996 by Stuart H. Wolff, an electrical engineer by training, the Westlake Village-based firm quickly became the biggest provider of home-sale listings on the Web. It was a service the public--and real estate agents--seemed to want and need.