[12][13] 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.

[31][20][32] Several more acquisitions of online real estate companies followed, with Zillow purchasing Rentjuice and Hotpads in 2012,[33][34] StreetEasy in 2013,[35] and Trulia, a major competitor, in 2015 in a $2.5 billion deal.

[38] In June of that same year, Zillow signed a partnership with Century 21 Canada to begin listing Canadian properties on the site, marking the first country outside the United States to be covered by the company.

[45] In November 2021, CEO Barton announced the company would shutter the home-buying part of the business, sell its existing inventory, and lay off 25% of its employees.

This score evaluates risks such as flooding, wildfires, and extreme heat, providing transparency and enabling buyers to make more informed decisions.

The feature is part of Zillow's ongoing effort to enhance the home-buying experience by integrating relevant environmental data.

[49] Zillow Group Inc is a real estate marketplace company[50][51] that provides information and services related to selling, buying, renting, and financing through its platform, which is accessible through a website and mobile application.

[52][53][54] 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.

[55][56][57] This new business model is structured around five pillars of growth: touring, financing, expanding seller solutions, enhancing partner network, and integrating services.

[59][60][61] Zillow has pursued acquisitions of companies that serve to expand its user base, provide new assets and services, or generally accelerate growth.

[72] 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.

[79] Zillow provides sellers with an estimate of home value, referred to as a "Zestimate", based on a range of information available through public records, including sales of comparable houses in a neighborhood.

[81] Sellers and agents can both use Zillow's suite listings tools, which facilitate interactive and 3D floor plans enabled by AI features.

[88] Zillow determines an estimate, also known as a "Zestimate", for a home based on a range of publicly available information, including sales of comparable houses in a neighborhood.

[93] In 2007, The Wall Street Journal studied the accuracy of Zillow's estimates and found that they "often are very good, frequently within a few percentage points of the actual price paid.

[97] While factors contributing to estimates are described elsewhere, Zillow seemingly overemphasizes home square footage as the major metric driving property valuation.

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.

[103] 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.

[105] 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.