In the interest of building out the extreme top-of-funnel in home sales, real estate companies have been building out rental strategies, with increasing force. Zillow Group has increased its focuse on this in recent years, and now Redfin dives into rentals with its pending acquisition of RentPath. CoStar Group, which just jumped into the residential real estate sales arena with its December acquisition of Homesnap, had tried to acquire RentPath in 2020, but the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, citing its anticompetitive outcome, sued to block it from going through. CoStar owns Apartments.com, which it acquired in 2014 for $585 million. As the residential real estate space deepens and broadens with consolidation and massive outside investment, all parts of the residential ecosystem will be increasingly mined. The dive into rentals by these companies is an example.