Zillow put a number on nearly every home in America, including the ones nobody was selling. That number, the Zestimate, sat beside listings and sales histories for tens of millions of homes. When Zillow filed to go public in 2011, housing was still deep in the wreckage of the financial crisis. People kept looking anyway, often at their own homes and their neighbors'. Zillow had become one of the most visited real estate sites in the country.

From Expedia to Housing

Rich Barton had already turned travel booking into a consumer product at Expedia. With Lloyd Frink, he bet that real estate data could be opened up to everyone. Agents and listing services had long held it close. The Zestimate, launched in 2006, was the hook: a free, instant number for any address, and one people loved to argue over. Zillow made its money from agents and advertisers who wanted to reach all those curious browsers.

Trulia, Then a Costly Detour

Zillow priced its IPO at $20 a share in July 2011 and traded well above that on its first day. In 2015 it bought its rival Trulia and became the dominant home search site in the United States. Then it tried buying and flipping homes itself. That business, Zillow Offers, ended in 2021 with large losses. Zillow went back to running a marketplace, and it remains publicly traded.

Cover: The Artist's House at Argenteuil, Claude Monet. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a house (home values).