Zillow Group

Zillow operates as a remora attached to the multi-trillion-dollar housing market, extracting value through information aggregation without owning inventory. The company achieved $2.2 billion in 2024 revenue (up 15%) and $2.48 billion trailing twelve months as of December 2025, capturing over 50% of US real estate portal visits—more than double nearest competitor. Like cleaner fish that service multiple host species, Zillow serves buyers (home search), sellers (Zestimate valuations, agent connections), renters (rental listings up 35% in multifamily Q4 2024), and mortgage seekers (lending marketplace). The Zestimate algorithm represents Zillow's primary moat: aggregating millions of property records, sales transactions, and market signals into automated valuations creates dataset advantages that compound over time, similar to how Google's search algorithm improves through query volume. The company's failed iBuying experiment (Zillow Offers shut down 2021 after $881M inventory writedown) demonstrated the limits of moving from remora to predator—attempting to own housing inventory exposed the company to market risk its information-intermediary model avoided. The subsequent retreat to pure marketplace model mirrors a species returning to ancestral niche after failed adaptive radiation. Zillow's 26% adjusted EBITDA margin in Q1 2025 shows the profitability of information asymmetry monetization: minimal marginal costs for additional users, high-margin advertising from agents competing for leads. The company's 2025 momentum despite challenging housing market (high prices, high rates limiting transactions) demonstrates the resilience of platform ecosystems—Zillow captures value from both buy and sell sides of every transaction, plus rental market when ownership stalls. The rentals segment's 25% Q4 growth reveals niche expansion: as homeownership becomes less accessible, Zillow monetizes the rental alternative, like organisms exploiting multiple food sources when primary nutrition fluctuates.