Making a move into the online real estate market, San Jose, Calif.-based online auction company eBay last week announced plans to acquire Rent.com, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based Internet rental listing
site, for roughly $415 million dollars. The acquisition, coming four months after eBay's purchase of a 25 percent stake in the online classified service Craigslist--is expected to close in the first
quarter of 2005. eBay plans to operate Rent.com as an independent entity, said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy. eBay also has classified sites in Germany, Korea, India, and the Netherlands.
--Shankar
Gupta
