In 2021 Zillow bet that its famous Zestimate algorithm could buy and flip houses at scale. It could not. Within months the company shut down Zillow Offers, cut about a quarter of its roughly 6,400 person workforce, and took a write-down of about $304 million in a single quarter on homes the program had bought, before winding it down.[1] The episode is a useful key to the company: a Seattle technology firm that has always believed data and transparency could remake an old, relationship driven industry, and that keeps testing how far that belief can be pushed.
- Campaign money tied to Zillow's name runs about 88 percent to Democrats.
- Co-founder Rich Barton's foundation has given millions to criminal justice reform and racial equity.
- Zillow runs its own federal PAC and spent about $1.41 million lobbying in 2024.
- Barton also founded Expedia and Glassdoor and has sat on Netflix's board since 2002.
- More than 200 million people use Zillow's apps and sites in an average month.
Quick Take
Among real estate brands, Zillow is unusual for actually showing up in Washington. It runs its own corporate political action committee and reported about $1.41 million in federal lobbying in calendar year 2024, alongside roughly $524,000 in federal campaign contributions tied to its name in that election cycle.[2][3] That contribution money has long favored Democrats, who received about 88 percent of it in the 2024 cycle and nearly all of it in cycles a decade earlier.[3] Its co-founder and co-executive chair, Rich Barton, is a Giving Pledge signer and a longtime Netflix board member, and the foundation he runs with his wife has directed millions of dollars toward criminal justice reform and racial equity.[4][5] The company's public identity is built on consumer facing transparency, a philosophy Barton calls "power to the people," even as that same market power drew antitrust suits in 2025 from a rival brokerage and from the Federal Trade Commission.[6]
Where the Political Money Goes
Zillow engages in federal politics more directly than the large brokerage franchises do. It maintains its own federal committee, the Zillow Group PAC, which drew 561 large contributions of $200 or more in the 2023 to 2024 cycle.[7] The company reported about $1.41 million in federal lobbying for calendar year 2024, a level of Washington activity that fits its business, since Zillow's lobbying disclosures list issues such as mortgage lending, appraisals, housing supply, rental policy, and data privacy, putting it in regular contact with federal housing policy in ways a local brokerage rarely is.[2] Separately, OpenSecrets tracks roughly $524,000 in campaign contributions tied to the Zillow name in the 2024 cycle, drawn from its PAC and from employees who report Zillow as their employer, and that money runs heavily to Democrats: Democratic candidates and committees took about 88 percent of it in the 2024 cycle, and the tilt was even steeper in earlier cycles, roughly 98 percent in 2020 and effectively all of it in 2016.[3][8]
The Founder and His Philanthropy
Rich Barton co-founded Zillow in 2004 with Lloyd Frink, a fellow Expedia alumnus, and launched the site in 2006 around the Zestimate, a public estimate of nearly every home's value.[9] Barton, a Stanford graduate and former Microsoft manager, had already founded Expedia and would co-found the workplace transparency site Glassdoor, and he has served on the Netflix board since 2002.[4][9] He and his wife Sarah signed the Giving Pledge, and their Barton Family Foundation has donated more than $24 million since 2016, including over $9.6 million to criminal justice reform and racial equity causes, according to an industry profile.[5] These are the founder's own philanthropic choices, which are separate from any official corporate political position. In August 2024 Barton handed the chief executive job to longtime executive Jeremy Wacksman, who joined Zillow from Microsoft in 2009, and became co-executive chair alongside Frink.[10]
What Zillow Actually Is
Zillow Group (Nasdaq: Z and ZG) operates the most visited real estate marketplace in the United States, with a reported audience of more than 200 million average monthly unique users, and it makes most of its money selling leads and advertising to real estate agents through Premier Agent, supplemented by Zillow Home Loans, a rentals marketplace, and newer products like Zillow Showcase.[6] The company posted full year 2024 revenue of about $2.2 billion and a net loss of about $112 million, a loss that has been narrowing, and it returned to quarterly net income during 2025.[6][11] Its history since 2021 has been a steady pivot away from the failed home flipping experiment and toward a software and marketplace model.
The 2025 Legal Storm
Zillow spent 2025 under a barrage of litigation tied to its market power. In June the rival brokerage Compass sued Zillow over its listing access standards, a policy that effectively keeps a home off Zillow if it is marketed to some buyers before being posted to the industry's shared listing system and to Zillow within one business day.[6][12] In September the Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust suit over a rental advertising partnership between Zillow and Redfin.[6] After a four day hearing in November 2025, a federal judge refused in February 2026 to block Zillow's listing rules, and Compass voluntarily dismissed its suit in March 2026 once Zillow said it would begin showing pre-market listings openly on its platform.[12][13] These are business and legal fights rather than political ones, but they go to the heart of how much control one platform should have over how homes are marketed.
Where to Find Them
Zillow operates at zillow.com, headquartered in Seattle and traded on the Nasdaq under Z and ZG, pairing its consumer marketplace with Zillow Home Loans and a rentals business.[6][9]
Footnotes
[1] NPR, "Zillow will stop buying and renovating homes and cut 25% of its workforce," November 3, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/11/03/1051941654/zillow-will-stop-buying-and-renovating-homes-and-cut-25-of-its-workforce
[2] OpenSecrets, "Zillow Group Profile: Summary" (lobbying, 2024), accessed August 2, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/zillow-group/summary?id=D000031213
[3] OpenSecrets, "Zillow Group Profile: Summary" (2024 cycle contributions), accessed August 2, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/zillow-group/summary?id=D000031213
[4] Wikipedia, "Rich Barton," accessed August 2, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Barton
[5] Real Estate News, "Rich Barton" (key players profile), accessed August 2, 2026. https://www.realestatenews.com/key-players/rich-barton
[6] CNBC, "Zillow is facing lawsuits. Here is how it disrupted real estate," November 17, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/17/zillow-antitrust-lawsuits-disrupted-real-estate.html
[7] OpenSecrets, "Zillow Group PAC Donors," 2024 cycle, accessed August 2, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/zillow-group/C00699439/donors/2024
[8] OpenSecrets, "Zillow Group Profile: Totals," all cycles, accessed August 3, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/zillow-group/totals?id=D000031213
[9] Zillow Group, "Rich N. Barton, Board of Directors," accessed August 2, 2026. https://www.zillowgroup.com/people/rich-barton-board-of-directors/
[10] PRNewswire, "Zillow Group Promotes Jeremy Wacksman to CEO," August 7, 2024. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zillow-group-promotes-jeremy-wacksman-to-ceo-302216971.html
[11] Zillow Group, "Zillow Group Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2024 Financial Results," February 11, 2025. https://investors.zillowgroup.com/investors/news-and-events/news/news-details/2025/Zillow-Group-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2024-Financial-Results/default.aspx
[12] HousingWire, "A recap of Zillow's 2025 legal storm," December 12, 2025. https://www.housingwire.com/articles/compass-costar-ftc-zillow-cases/
[13] Reuters, "Compass dismisses lawsuit against Zillow after 'Zillow ban' ends," March 18, 2026. https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2026-03-18/compass-voluntarily-dismisses-lawsuit-against-zillow-regarding-real-estate-listings
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