As we announced in yesterday's Newsflash, eBay has acquired HomesDirect, an Internet provider of foreclosure-related auction services. The acquisition includes Tower Communications, HomesDirect's government foreclosure subsidiary. In 2000, HomesDirect.com was responsible for the sale of over 116,000 homes, all on the Internet and all via auction. It currently auctions all of the Housing & Urban Development foreclosure properties and the majority of Veterans Administration properties, and recently began forging relationships with lending institutions including Chase Manhattan Mortgage Corporation, Option One Mortgage Corporation and Bank of America's Equicredit division. HomesDirect will continue to operate under its current name, and, as a subsidiary of eBay, will be referred to as "an eBay company." In addition, HomesDirect's Web site will remain at http://www.homesdirect.com, and eBay is adding a new foreclosures link within its real estate category that will direct consumers, agents and brokers to the HomesDirect offering. HomesDirect is based in Pasadena, California and was majority-owned by Idealab, a incubator of technology businesses. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.