Now that the sale of Apartments.com is completed at $585 million, Classified Ventures is looking for $3 billion for Cars.com. William Launder,Dana Mattioli and Mike Spector wrote an article tonight for the Wall Street Journal.

A group of newspaper publishers has put the cars.com online marketplace up for sale for as much as $3 billion, hoping to cash in on booming values for e-commerce sites, people familiar with the plans said.

Moelis & Co., which is advising the Classified Ventures publishers consortium on the sale, already has begun discussions with potential bidders, which are expected to include private-equity firms and strategic investors, the people said. It is also possible that one of the publishers could raise its stake or buy out the others.

Cars.com generates around $400 million to $500 million in revenue a year, according to a person familiar with the site. But a new owner potentially could tap roughly an additional $200 million annually. That revenue currently is distributed directly to the owners separate from the dividends they receive, through sales agreements that allow their newspapers to handle ad sales on behalf of Cars.com in many local markets.

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