LoopNet this week announced its acquisition of REApplications, a provider of on-demand commercial brokerage operations software. REApplications' solutions, which serve the commercial real estate market, are web-based and facilitate a variety of functions for managing market research, including property inventory; listings and comparables; commission management; customer relationship management (CRM); project tracking; and transaction management. LoopNet bought REApplications for an aggregate cash consideration of $9.4 million.

REApplications boasts an impressive list of commercial brokerage and property valuation firms, such as Coldwell Banker Commerical and Cushman &Wakefield LePage. REApplications will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of LoopNet, and the senior management team will remain in place.

This is yet another illustration of the value created from a data-software integration and it's certainly a big win for all of the involved parties. LoopNet is able to enhance its offerings and make them more valuable--and usable--to its current customers. At the same time, REApplications will likely yield growth it probably wouldn't have been able to achieve on its own as its solutions are placed in the hands of LoopNet customers--and that's a large group. LoopNet currently has more than 2.75 registered members. Lastly, customers of both LoopNet and REApplications will benefit from the efficiencies afforded by an integrated solution that enables them to more easily complete all tasks associated with the management and marketing activities.

In today's competitive marketplace, creating this data-software integration is a must. Customers need and demand valuable content packaged with services to create a complete solution to help them achieve their goals. That is exactly what LoopNet and REApplications are now positioned to provide.