The $16 billion company is pushing more into the transaction side of the real estate industry, which Jeremy Wacksman calls ‘a better business to be in.’
On his Zillow account, Jeremy Wacksman has “favorited” every home he’s ever lived in, just to keep tabs. Among them: a two-story, 2,500-square-foot house with four bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms and a sprawling front yard in the Cincinnati suburbs where he grew up. “The doors weren’t red when we lived there,” the chief executive officer of Zillow Group Inc. notes, squinting at a “street view” image on his iPhone. In 1997, when Wacksman was in college, his father sold the house for $227,000. These days his company’s proprietary algorithmic valuation, or Zestimate, calculates it’s worth around $700,000.
Zillow is to real estate what Uber Technologies Inc. is to taxis, a tech disrupter that’s come to redefine its market. Every month about 243 million users scour its house-hunting portal via desktop or app for listings in the US—quadruple the reach of its closest competitor, according to Zillow. Mindlessly perusing Zillow is so enticingly common, especially for aging millennials, that Saturday Night Live in 2021 likened it to internet porn. “Our listings are just standing by waiting for you to browse them,” quipped the voice-over of a faux-erotic ad. That spoof was “a marketer’s dream,” says Wacksman, 48.
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(Bloomberg) — High prices threaten to send US auto sales into decline this year as middle-class consumers shy away from new-vehicle purchases with stickers near record levels.
Major carmakers including General Motors Co., Honda Motor Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. said sales fell during the final three months of the year. Although industrywide volume likely surpassed 16 million vehicles for 2025, the annualized rate slowed in the fourth quarter to an estimated 15.6 million, down more than 5% from the third quarter, according to industry researcher Cox Automotive.
Automakers are contending with consumer angst about the cost of living that persisted throughout the last year, as well as curtailed government support for electric vehicles and new tariffs that are pushing up costs. Randy Parker, Chief Executive Officer of Hyundai’s North America business, said those issues will continue to weigh on the industry this year.