Technology

Zillow, the publicly traded real estate portal and lead generation service, has acquired Mortgage Lenders of America. This is Zillow&sfirst move into originatingmortgages. Until now, the companyfocus in this space was on providing home buyers with quotes from a variety of third-party lenders.

The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Mortgage Lenders of America (MLoA) is a privately held online lender based in Kansas. It will continue to operate as usual and will continue to appear in Zillow existing mortgage marketplace, which isn&t going away either. &Owning a mortgage lender will allow Zillow Group to develop new tools and partnership opportunities, including for real estate brokers with existing in-house mortgage operations or mortgage affiliates,& the company says in todayannouncement.

Other lenders in Zillowmarketplace may not feel the same way. MLoAoriginated 4,400 mortgage loans in 2017. The company argues that this leaves &plenty of opportunity for independent lenders to continue to advertise and build their businesses on the Zillow Group platform.&

In many ways, this move makes perfect sense, given the trajectory Zillow has been on in recent years. The company recently started buying and selling homes through its Zillow Offers program in a few select cities, so this closes the loop for buyers who are using this program.

&Getting a mortgage can be the toughest, most painstaking and time-consuming part of the home buying process,& said Greg Schwartz, president of media and marketplaces at Zillow Group, in a canned statement. &Now that we are buying and selling homes through Zillow Offers, we believe that having our own mortgage origination service as an option for consumers will allow us to streamline the process for people who buy a Zillow-owned home. Over time, we expect the work we do in conjunction with this new line of business will help us expand our offerings to our partners & including real estate brokers with existing in-house mortgage operations and third-party lenders who co-market with Premier Agents.&

MLoA was founded in 2000 and currently has about 300 employees. It will remain in its Kansas headquarters and its CEO Philip Kneibert will continue to lead the company as general manager after the deal closes, which will likely happen in the fourth quarter of 2018.

As of late, Lyft has been doubling down on its messaging that it wants to reduce the amount of car ownership in the U.S. The companymost recent example of its anti-car ownership efforts is coming in the form of a partnership with car rental company Avis.

As part of a multi-year deal, Avis will add thousands of cars to LyftExpress Drive program, which offers drivers a way to rent cars on a weekly basis from Hertz, Flexdrive and now, Avis.

&Our partnership withAvisBudget Group allows us to provide new and existing drivers who are seeking a reliable source of income with more quality options when choosing a vehicle,& Lyft COO Jon McNeill said in a press release. &And as more drivers decide to give up their own cars, they can continue to earn with Lyft as we expand the Express Drive program.&

This comes on the heels of Lyft bringing on Teslanow-former VP of worldwide service and customer experience, Karim Bousta, to lead Express Drive.At Lyft, Bousta is also responsible for launching and scaling the next generation of Lyft Hubs, which are Lyftdriver support centers. He also will be tasked with beefing up driver rewards and incentives.

Similarly, Uber offers weekly and daily car rentals for drivers via Hertz, Getaround and Fair. Uber has since expanded its partnership with Getaround to enable anyone to rent a car for personal use via the Uber app.Dubbed Uber Rent, the platform taps into Getaroundexisting marketplace of cars that are available for instant rentals.

In May,Lyft committed$100 million to better support its drivers by specifically putting the money toward cheaper oil changes, basic car maintenance, serviced car washes and more. Lyft also will almost double its operating hours at its driver hubs in 15 cities throughout the nation.

The idea with that commitment is to help drivers make more money and maximize their earnings by offsetting the costs of driving. Other benefits will include car and SUV rentals, tax education and more.

Lyft also says it expects to more than double its driver base in the next five years. Currently, Lyft has 1.4 million drivers,according to its latest economic impact report.

After entering the NBN playing field in December 2017, Vodafone has now announced a new and simplified trio of plans that it hopes will bring better value to the Australian high-speed internet market.

The three new plans cover each of the speed tiers available from NBN Co – 25Mbps, 50Mbps, and 100Mbps – and weigh in at $58, $69, and $89 per month re