This is the ninth in a series of nine reports on the challenges the country’s largest brokerages, portals and iBuyers face in 2023. To read more, take a look back at the challenges they faced in 2022 here.
It was midway through the red-hot 2021 housing market when Zillow Group officials acknowledged they were no longer confident about how long or how quickly home prices would continue to rise.
Struck by this realization, they rushed to shut down the company’s iBuying program and sell off the remaining homes the company had bought in order to fix and flip. And soon after Zillow offloaded the vast bulk of these homes, prices began to fall nationwide.
In hindsight, Zillow officials and outside experts who spoke with Inman for this article said Zillow got out in the nick of time, setting up the company to better weather the slowing housing market of 2022 and 2023.
Now, armed with fewer capital constraints and a team that can focus on expanding options for consumers, Zillow President Susan Daimler says she is confident the company is in position to weather the storm.
Susan Daimler
“Post-[Zillow Offers], we have this really high-margin business,” Daimler told Inman. “We have a lot of fuel to invest. We’ve always been investors. We really have always had this startup mentality, and really putting bets down about what we really think is going to be best for the customer [and] the best for our partner agents.”
The Seattle-based company is not immune from the challenges facing the real estate field, nor the tech world of which it’s also a part. Prominent companies in both industries have undergone substantial layoffs in recent months.
But industry analyst Mike DelPrete told Inman that Zillow remains on solid footing heading into this year.
“When you look across the field, you have companies cutting, slashing expenses left and right to try to reach free cash flow or stay alive,” DelPrete said. “That’s not the case for Zillow. Zillow’s in a…