RealtyTrac

RealtyTrac is a real estate information company and an online marketplace for foreclosed and defaulted properties in the United States. It was founded in 1993 and is based in Santa Barbara, California. The site has over 1 million "distressed" properties in its database at any time. The company provides data to MSN Real Estate, Yahoo! Real Estate and The Wall Street Journal and from 2005 they press release monthly figures on foreclosures that they say are a good indicator of real estate appreciation or depreciation. Government agencies and Wall Street analysts also use the data, which are given free to government bodies. In 2022, RealtyTrac was acquired by Nations Info Corp. and David Teng, who had joined Nations Info Corporation as President in 2020, was appointed CEO of Realtytrac. In 2008 they had 150 data collectors, who collected data directly from notices posted on courthouse noticeboards or from county recorder offices. In 1998 the company had records on 180,000 Californian properties as data was obtained from smaller companies that transcribed property records from typically only one county or municipality. In 2000, then Vice President at Comerica Bank, Matthew Mara (a golfing buddy of Mr. Schwarzrock) arranged a meeting between Realty trac LLC and First Security Van Kasper of Newport Beach, California, a brokerage and investment-banking company.