11/03/2021
"Yesterday Zillow discontinued their program, "Zillow Offers" permanently. Two weeks ago they announced a "pause" in the program which then stopped making offers. It is now clear, given the losses they shared with Wall Street yesterday, that pause was just a pre-emptive move in advance of a permanent elimination of the entire program.
According to the Zillow CEO, Rich Barton, they've been overpaying for homes across the county and have amassed thousands of properties in their quest to be the biggest i-buyer. He further said the algorithm they've been using to determine value is flawed. (think "zestimates") He also said they have already lost over $380,000,000 buying and selling and will realize at least $569,000,000.00 in additional losses on inventory that has not sold. Meanwhile they have thousands of homes currently under contract to buy that they must close on that will potentially add another $240,000,000.00 to the loss column. Meaning: this program will end up in the red by over $1,000,000,000.00. Yes, 1 Billion Dollars.
Zillow is a media company with a tech platform. They became a real estate company, home remodeler and flipper, mortgage company, and title company. Yesterday that all failed. Back to the basics for Zillow. Being all of those things is one thing, succeeding at them is something totally different!!
Rest assured, this should not affect the marketplace or valuation. The number of homes they own (and will sell), is a very small fraction of the homes in America.
Remember this -- All real estate is local. Trust the local experts."