Online retail giant Overstock.com is entering the real estate business. The company announced this week that it will begin to manage properties for landlords of single-family rental properties and multifamily housing developments through its newly acquired property management site called Houserie.
“For nearly 20 years, Overstock has connected customers with premium home goods, helping them build their dream homes; now, we look forward to expanding those services in the real estate industry,” Seth Moore, Overstock.com’s senior vice president of strategy, said in a statement. “We’re always finding ways to use our technology to help customers find just what they want for their homes. Adding real estate to the mix was a natural fit for our brand.”
Houserie provides property managers several services for managing single-home properties or multihome complexes, such as tenant screening, communication with renters, organizing resident information, and soon-to-be-launched rent payment management. Houserie was founded in May 2013; the company was purchased by Overstock in February.
Houserie is the first phase of Overstock’s O Real Estate initiatives, which seeks to harness its search technology to assist customers with their real estate needs. The O Real Estate site is set to launch in September. The company says it plans to become a “one-stop real estate shop” that offers a portal for renting, buying, and managing properties.
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