- Agents and landlords can list rental properties for free on both sites. Zumper offers free rental applicant screening.
San Francisco-based Zumper, a rental listing site, has acquired competitor PadMapper, a move that will further grow its millennial-centric user base and expand its coverage to Canada.
PadMapper will operate as a subsidiary of Zumper and PadMapper’s CEO, Eric DeMenthon, and chief technology officer (CTO), Rob Cromwell, will join Zumper. Other terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Zumper, which has raised $20.2 million in funding to date, says the acquisition will position Zumper as the “fifth most trafficked rental platform” and that Zumper and PadMapper received a combined 4 million visits in January.
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Some of the most popular rental websites include Apartments.com, Apartment Guide and ForRent.com. Zillow recently bought what it said is the biggest New York City rental-only site, Naked Apartments, for $13 million.
Screenshot showing Zumper search results page.
Launched in 2009, PadMapper was the first map-based search platform in the U.S. and Canada, according to Zumper. It offers hundreds of thousands of listings in the two countries, Zumper said.
PadMapper’s user base “perfectly complements” Zumper’s, said Devin O’Brien, head of strategic marketing at Zumper. That’s because PadMapper’s audience tends to skew towards college students, recent graduates and young professionals moving into their first or second home, while Zumper’s audience “centers around the young professional, most likely moving into their third or fourth home.”
Zumper lets landlords and agents post rental listings for free and will also quickly screen rental applicants on their behalf. Landlords and agents can also pay to promote their listings in property search results.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct that Devin O’Brien is the head of strategic marketing at Zumper, not the CEO. Zumper’s CEO is Anthemos Georgiades.
