How Does Zillow Make Money?

What is Zillow?

Digital real estate platform Zillow has made money for stock investors by becoming the most-visited real estate website in the world, the 14th most-visited page in the United States, and the 53rd most-visited website on the planet, with 337 million people spending an average of six minutes looking at its listings in August 2025.

Along with its real estate popularity, Zillow has enjoyed a cultural moment, with an HGTV show, Zillow Gone Wild (inspired by the Zillow Gone Wild Instagram account), featuring Zillow’s most unique and outrageous properties. In addition, the phrase “Zillow porn” has become shorthand for online real estate browsing.

The company was formed in 2004 by former executives from Microsoft (MSFT +1.55%) who launched the travel website Expedia. The Zillow website went live in 2006, with the innovative Zestimate giving it an instant claim to fame. The online tool provided estimates of home values, driving millions of users to the website; it’s since been updated to take advantage of advances in artificial intelligence (AI) that yield more accurate values.

In 2008, the company started a mortgage marketplace where potential homebuyers could obtain quotes from lenders. Despite a housing market meltdown, Zillow became profitable in 2010 and held its initial public offering (IPO) in 2011. Since then, the company has grown both organically and through a series of acquisitions, including Hotpads (2012), StreetEasy (2013), and Trulia (2015).

How does Zillow make money?

While Zillow’s traffic statistics are impressive, they’re not the only way that the company has been able to monetize its success. The company has four basic ways of making money in a difficult real estate market:

• Agent advertising. The company’s primary revenue source is a program that allows real estate agents and brokers to use their names and brands directly on the website’s property listings. Zillow’s Premier Agent tool connects agents with buyers in local markets, as well as offering exclusive tools, personalized support, and brand-building expertise.
• Rental management advertising. Property managers, landlords, and individual property managers pay for advertising on the website. For smaller properties, Zillow allows landlords to build listings, screen tenants, sign leases, and collect rent. Larger properties, or those with more than 25 homes, can list properties and increase visibility through subscriptions or pay-per-lease agreements.
• Home loans. The Zillow Home Loans program was formed by the 2018 acquisition of Mortgage Lenders of America. The program originates mortgages and also earns revenue from other mortgage lenders through referral fees and advertising. The platform allows potential buyers to get pre-qualified, lock into competitive rates, and connect with a loan officer.
• Data services. The company sells access to its listings, which make up a potential treasure trove of data for businesses, researchers, and real estate professionals. Available datasets include the Zillow Home Value Index, a measure of home values in the 35th to 65th percentile range across regions and housing types; monthly mortgage payments; total monthly payments; the Zillow Home Value Forecast; and the Zillow Observed Rent Index.

Zillow financials

The company reported $655 million in revenue for the second quarter of 2025, a 15% year-over-year increase. The bulk of its money came from its residential segment, which increased revenue by 6% year over year to $434 million. Zillow said the increase resulted from agent and software offerings, as well as a “New Construction” marketplace feature.

Recent developments

After peaking around $200 in early 2021, share prices slid precipitously, falling at one point to less than $30 per share as interest rates soared to their highest levels in a generation and the housing market plunged into a deep freeze. Over the last year, though, Zillow stock has rebounded, climbing 61% to about $92 per share by September 2025.

The company settled a long-running lawsuit in 2023 that was sparked by the 2015 launch of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau investigation. The CFPB alleged that Zillow’s marketing program allowed lenders to pay a portion of agent advertising costs to Zillow, effectively paying to receive unlawful mortgage referrals.

The CFPB closed its investigation without taking any enforcement action in 2018, but the lawsuit dragged on to 2023, when Zillow settled it for $15 million.

The company currently faces another lawsuit, though. Compass, the nation’s largest real estate brokerage, filed a lawsuit in June 2025 alleging that Zillow has broken antitrust laws by banning listings that aren’t placed on a multiple listing service (MLS) within one day of being publicly marketed. Compass says the policy is designed to force all home sale information to Zillow, stifling competition in the home search field.

Although the housing market has been mired in a slump since inflation soared in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, investors with the patience to weather volatility or who want to diversify a portfolio with real estate stocks may be poised to benefit from an uptick.

The company reported in August that rental home prices increased just 2.4% year over year; rental affordability was improving for the first time since 2021; and 36.7% of rental listings on Zillow were offering concessions, a new high.

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