Who Owns Zillow?

Rich Barton, who founded Expedia inside Microsoft in the 1990s, and Lloyd Frink, another Microsoft and Expedia veteran, launched Zillow in February 2006. The premise was radical for the era: publish estimated values for every American home, for free. The Zestimate, built from public records and proprietary models, drew a million visitors within days and made the brand a household name almost immediately.

The site monetized through advertising, selling exposure to real estate agents and mortgage lenders who wanted access to its massive audience. Zillow went public in July 2011 at a valuation around $1.6 billion.

Expansion followed through acquisition. Zillow bought New York rental site StreetEasy in 2013 for $50 million, then merged with its largest rival Trulia in a $3.5 billion stock deal completed in 2015, consolidating the portal market. Rentals site HotPads, agent software Follow Up Boss, showing platform ShowingTime (acquired 2021 for $500 million), and transaction tools Dotloop and Mortech rounded out an ecosystem covering the whole home-shopping journey.

The most consequential bet was Zillow Offers, an iBuying operation launched in 2018 that bought, renovated, and resold homes directly. It grew fast and failed faster. Zillow shut down Offers in November 2021, wrote down hundreds of millions, cut about 25 percent of its workforce, and absorbed more than $880 million in cumulative losses on the venture.

Since 2022 the company has focused on what it calls the housing super app: integrating search, touring, financing through Zillow Home Loans, and rentals into one flow. Rentals became the fastest-growing segment, with multifamily revenue up 63 percent in Q4 2025. In 2026 Zillow rolled out its Preferred agent connection model nationwide, began integrating AI search features including a ChatGPT partnership, and navigated litigation over its listing-access policies.