Zillow

Early history

Rich Barton conceived of Zillow while at Microsoft, where he founded Expedia.com. Barton believed that a consumer-facing site could transform the real estate industry in the same way that Expedia had the travel industry. Barton told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "the web [had] been around for now 9 years or 10 years, but still I couldn't get pictures of homes and complete listings and prices and addresses." "We were trying to answer a simple question. What is that house worth? What should we offer if we wanted to buy it?"

In December 2004, Zillow was incorporated in Washington. Barton and co-founder Lloyd Frink, a former Expedia executive, self-funded the company, which operated out of a downtown Seattle office with 20 employees.

Zillow's website was launched on February 8, 2006, and included a home-valuation tool that anyone could use. Other features at the time included information about home sale history and charts and graphs comparing home value appreciation with other towns or states. The site crashed on the morning it launched because its servers were unable to handle the volume of traffic.

In July 2006, Zillow announced a $25 million second-round investment. By then the company had grown to 118 employees. In December of that year, the Zillow website included features allowing users to put homes for sale online.

Expansion and growth

In April 2008, Zillow launched a mortgage marketplace. Later that month, the Zillow iPhone app was released. Apps for Android and Windows Mobile soon followed.

In 2010, Zillow became profitable for the first time. In September of that same year, Spencer Rascoff was named CEO of the company. Rascoff was formerly Zillow's COO and VP of marketing, and before that had been at Expedia. Rich Barton stayed as executive chairman.

Rascoff has previously expressed a desire for Zillow to go public. On April 18, 2011, Zillow filed for a $51.8 million initial public offering. On July 20, the company began trading under the symbol “Z” on the Nasdaq stock market.

Zillow made its first acquisition in 2011 by purchasing Postlets, a digital real estate listing and distribution platform. Several more acquisitions of online real estate companies followed, with Zillow purchasing Rentjuice and Hotpads in 2012, StreetEasy in 2013, and Trulia, a major competitor, in 2015 in a $2.5 billion deal. Zillow announced it has completed the acquisition of Mortech, Inc. for approximately $12 million in cash and 150,000 shares of restricted stock. Acquisition was complete on November 30, 2012.

Business model

Zillow Group Inc is a real estate marketplace company that provides information and services related to selling, buying, renting, and financing through its platform, which is accessible through a website and mobile application. In 2022 the company announced a "housing super app" business strategy in which the Zillow platform would facilitate all components of the home buying, selling, and renting process, from initial property searches to closing to moving. This new business model is structured around five pillars of growth: touring, financing, expanding seller solutions, enhancing partner network, and integrating services. Zillow executives have stated that by focusing on these growth metrics, the company can increase both the total number of customer transactions and the revenue per customer transaction.

Before 2023, Zillow's business operations were organized into three segments: Internet, Media, and Technology (“IMT”), Mortgages, and Homes.

Acquisitions

Zillow has pursued acquisitions of companies that serve to expand its user base, provide new assets and services, or generally accelerate growth. The company made its first acquisition in 2011 when it purchased Postlets, a digital real estate listing and distribution platform. In 2015, Zillow purchased Trulia, a major competitor, in a $2.5 billion deal. At that time, Zillow and Trulia combined to account for 70 percent of online real estate searches.

Services

Zillow's web and mobile platform offers real estate-related services for buying, selling, renting, and financing. Zillow notes that many customers utilize multiple services simultaneously, as home sellers are often buying at the same time and many renters are also investigating ownership options.

Controversy and lawsuits

While factors contributing to estimates are described elsewhere, Zillow seemingly overemphasizes home square footage as the major metric driving property valuation. This method may not be unique to Zillow, but unduly distorts value expectations. Listings in areas where land is priced at high premiums often reflect an identical Zillow estimate to that of nearby homes with comparable interior square footage, but where the home might be decades older. Condition, age of home, special features, and proximity to nuisances are insufficiently factored into the estimate. Zillow has made some effort to add balance by including an option for owners to provide their own value estimate, but these figures can be similarly unreliable as being opinion instead of quantifiable.

In 2014, Zillow faced several lawsuits from former employees at the Zillow operation in Irvine, California, alleging violations of California Labor Code and California Business and Professions Code. On February 26, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California certified the class to include anyone who worked as an inside sales consultant at Zillow between November 2010 and January 2015. Among the numerous allegations brought by high-profile attorneys Bobby Samini and Mark Geragos, Zillow is accused of failing to pay wages, failing to pay overtime pay, and failing to provide meal and rest breaks. Zillow responded: "the narrative being pushed by this law firm through their multiple lawsuits is completely inconsistent with those who know and work with Zillow...the behavior described does not accurately depict our culture or the 1,200 Zillow employees."

In addition, Samini and Geragos represented a former Zillow employee in a sexual harassment action against the company, alleging "sexual torture" and "the most heinous acts of sexual harassment imaginable". According to the lawsuit, Zillow's Southern California office represents an "adult frat house where sexual harassment and misconduct are normalized, condoned, and promoted by male managers." Based on the allegations against the company, Samini has called Zillow a "modern day Animal House." On May 5, 2016, Zillow settled the action for an undisclosed amount, without admitting any wrongdoing.

In 2017, Zillow sent a cease-and-desist letter to Kate Wagner, the author of McMansion Hell, a blog that lampooned the presentations of luxury homes found on the site. Wagner was represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Zillow later released a statement saying it had "decided against moving forward with legal action" on the matter.

In June 2025, the real estate brokerage, Compass, Inc., sued Zillow, alleging that Zillow violated federal antitrust laws with its policy that any home that was put on the market but not available for listing on Zillow within 24 hours would be forever banned from its site. The Zillow policy seemed to target Compass' "Private Exclusives" marketing channel, in which about 7,000 home listings were temporarily available only to Compass agents and the buyers working with them.

In September 2025, a proposed class action lawsuit was filed against Zillow in Seattle, alleging that Zillow violated federal real estate law as well as a Washington state consumer protection law by misleading prospective home buyers into contacting real estate agents affiliated with the company, from whom Zillow takes up to 40% of the commissions agents earn, rather than the agent who listed a home for sale.