Matthew Haines

We were late receiving the press release from Trulia.com and PropertyShark about a reciprocal arrangement to share data (though The Walk-Through got it a couple hours ago).

Here's why they're doing it, according to a statement from PropertyShark founder Matthew Haines:

“As the real-estate data market heats up, with lavishly-funded start-ups like Zillow joining the fray, it is essential that focused players like Trulia and PropertyShark partner to provide consumers and professionals with a soup-to-nuts offering of sales, leads, and property data and tools.”

Combined with this bizarrely written bit of gossip from Inman News, that Zillow is filing for real-estate brokerage licenses in every state, we're starting to think the anticlimactic launch of Zillow wasn't so much an anticlimax as the tip of an iceberg.

In other words: Zillow, forced to launch early, hasn't fully tweaked its data offerings--early disappointments are likely to be corrected; what's more, speculation it was so much less than brokers feared may be premature.

The full press release after the jump.  read more »