ZILLOW GROUP INC

Overview

We are reimagining residential real estate to make home a reality for more and more people. As the most visited real estate website in the United States 1, Zillow and its affiliates help people find and get the home they want by connecting them with digital solutions, dedicated real estate professionals, and easier buying, selling, financing and renting experiences. Hundreds of millions of people visit our mobile applications and websites every month to support their journey.

At the core of Zillow is our living database of approximately 165 million U.S. homes and our differentiated content, most notably the Zestimate, our patented proprietary automated valuation model through which we provide home value estimates. With the launch of the Zestimate feature in 2006, we introduced important transparency to residential real estate in order to empower consumers to make better decisions. During 2024, our Zestimate feature had a median error rate of 2.0% for homes listed for sale and 7.1% for off-market homes. We believe our data and content has helped the Zillow brand become synonymous with residential real estate with Zillow being searched online more than the term “real estate” in the United States 2.

We are helping renters, buyers, sellers, and real estate professionals across all their residential real estate needs through our “housing super app” which serves as an ecosystem of connected solutions for the tasks and services related to moving. We believe this allows us to build closer relationships with our customers to help them find and move into the places they call home, which is at the core of our mission. We strive to provide renters, buyers, sellers, real estate professionals, and the industry with the seamless, integrated, and tech-enabled experience they demand and deserve. We are focused on continually improving our consumer funnel, capturing consumer demand and connecting that demand to our partner network. We have made significant advancements in our strategy through growth and investments in the following areas:

•For Sale. The integrated transaction experience we have been building on Zillow is most fully experienced in our Enhanced Markets. Enhanced Markets are geographies in which consumers can easily navigate the home-buying process digitally and seamlessly. In these markets, consumers benefit from a more streamlined experience from touring to closing, with the support of our agent partners and Zillow Home Loans loan officers. As of December 31, 2024, we are active in 43 Enhanced Markets, which represents 21% of our total connections, or leads delivered to our Premier Agent partners. As we have continued to both launch into more Enhanced Markets and expand the experience within current Enhanced Markets, we have increased customer connection and conversion rates, which has increased our For Sale revenue relative to TTV. For Sale revenue includes our Residential and Mortgages revenue categories and represents our revenue from participation in residential real estate purchase and sale transactions. We define TTV as the number of existing residential homes sold during the relevant period multiplied by the average sales price of existing residential homes sold during the same period, according to residential real estate data collected and estimated by Zillow Group, as published monthly on our site. Our increased For Sale revenue per TTV is an indicator that our investments have driven outperformance relative to the industry in 2024. We will continue to monitor our For Sale revenue per TTV as a way to measure growth in our ability to connect and convert more buyers and sellers to transact with us. Additionally, Zillow Showcase listings are a tool for sellers to drive higher engagement to their listings, as our internal data shows that they typically drive more views, shares and saves, and enable those homes to sell faster and for more money than similar non-Showcase listings on our site. In 2024, we made Zillow Showcase available nationwide, and it is already on approximately 1.7% of new for sale listings.

•Industry Software. We are investing in digital solutions to empower real estate professionals to drive a better consumer experience for movers. Our software solutions are designed to make buying and selling a home easier, more efficient, and more digital, thereby delivering value for both real estate professionals and movers. As examples, we acquired Aryeo and Follow Up Boss, which provide real estate professionals tools to manage leads, create listings, and effectuate transactions. We will continue to invest in and implement digital solutions and services to make transacting in residential real estate easier for buyers, sellers and real estate professionals and to increase the number of customer transactions completed through Zillow.

1 Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform Key Measures, Real Estate, Total Audience, December 2024, U.S. report

2 Source: 2024 Google Trends report

•Rentals Marketplace. We are building a nationwide marketplace for renters and landlords, which aims to provide renters with a comprehensive listing of available rental inventory. Renters on Zillow can shop, tour, submit applications, sign a lease and pay rent securely. Landlords on Zillow can list, advertise, and access leasing and property management services. Our investments and efforts on our Rentals products and services have yielded growth in Rentals traffic, multifamily property count, and Rentals revenue during 2024 compared to the previous year.

We continue to operate in a macro housing environment that has experienced volatile mortgage rates and rental occupancy rates and low housing supply, which has led to affordability challenges for many potential buyers. Many potential sellers have postponed or forgone opportunities to sell, choosing instead to hold onto their existing lower-rate mortgages, limiting for sale housing supply as a result. However, while this shortfall of for-sale inventory has limited sales volume, prices have remained high as competition for the relatively few available for-sale homes remains firm. Conversely, as rental vacancy rates have increased and occupancy rates have decreased, we have seen increased demand for advertising. These macroeconomic factors and their impact on the residential real estate market have affected our business and influenced the resources we use to direct our operations.

Our chief executive officer, who acts as the chief operating decision maker, makes operating decisions and evaluates operating performance on the basis of the company as a whole. Accordingly, we operate as a single reportable segment.

Customer Offerings

To deliver on our mission, we strive to provide a seamless, integrated transaction experience for movers through Zillow, our network of trusted partners, our affiliated brands, and through a comprehensive suite of marketing software and technology solutions for the real estate industry, including ShowingTime+, Follow Up Boss and Spruce. We do this through a range of services designed to help our customers in whatever stage of the housing journey they may be in. This typically includes the need for multiple services simultaneously. Approximately 54% of sellers are also buying at the same time, and among renters with plans to move within the next year, 39% plan to buy their next home 3.

Our services are primarily designed for the following:

•For Buyers and Sellers. When a buyer is ready to begin their home buying journey, we offer a variety of options depending on where they choose to start. After searching for a home on our mobile applications and websites, consumers can choose to meet with a local real estate professional by connecting with a Premier Agent partner, scheduling an in-person home tour powered by ShowingTime+, or obtaining financing through Zillow Home Loans. For customers who are focused on buying new construction homes, we connect them with our home builder partners. Once buyers find their home, they can choose to work with our Premier Agent partners and affiliated integrated services, including financing through Zillow Home Loans, to facilitate a seamless transaction experience. For sellers, we are focused on providing them multiple ways to sell their homes.

•For Real Estate Professionals. We are focused on providing real estate professionals multiple ways to power their businesses and differentiate themselves and their listings on Zillow. We offer a variety of advertising and software solutions to enable them to more effectively make transacting in residential real estate easier for buyers, sellers and real estate professionals. This includes continuing to integrate Follow Up Boss, a customer relationship management system for real estate professionals, into our suite of product offerings. This tech-enabled solution gives real estate professionals a central hub to organize and engage customers, close deals and build out their teams. As of December 31, 2024, more than 80% of Enhanced Market connections are being managed through Follow Up Boss.

•For Borrowers. Eighty percent of all homes purchased in the U.S. are financed with a mortgage, 40% of all homebuyers start their home buying process shopping for a mortgage, and 80% of those buyers don’t yet have an agent 4. In order to address this opportunity, we provide buyers with multiple ways to pursue mortgage financing for their transaction. We provide the option to finance directly with Zillow Home Loans or to connect with our mortgage partners through our mortgage marketplace for both purchase and refinance opportunities. Zillow Home Loans, which is currently available in 49 states and the District of Columbia, originates mortgage loans and then generally sells the loans on the secondary market. In our Enhanced Markets, we are experiencing consistent buyer adoption rates across seasoned Enhanced Markets for Zillow Home Loans. We are also seeing higher transaction conversion rates for agent partners working with buyers who choose Zillow Home Loans.

3 Source: Zillow Group’s 2024 Consumer Housing Trends Report

4 Source: 2024 National Association of REALTORS® “2024 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report” and Zillow internal estimates

•For Renters. During 2024, we estimate that there were almost three times more households moving to a new rental than purchasing a home in the United States 5. In the U.S. market of nearly 49 million rental units 6, we provide renters with the ability to search within our industry-leading set of rental listings, and with tools to tour, submit applications, sign a lease, and make secure rental payments, on participating listings. We offer multifamily property managers a variety of advertising products to market and fill their vacancies, and we assist longtail landlords (which we define as properties with less than 25 units) with listings, advertising, leasing and property management services through Zillow Rental Manager. In 2024, we entered into a strategic partnership with Realtor.com to provide all multifamily listings on their site, and we launched our first national marketing campaign for Zillow Rentals dedicated to apartment seekers. We have already seen success in our ongoing partnership and multifamily advertising campaign as evidenced by increased customer awareness and Rentals traffic.

Competitive Advantages

We believe we have the following competitive advantages:

•Large and trusted brand. The Zillow Group portfolio attracted an annual monthly high of 241 million unique users in July 2024 and approximately 9.3 billion visits in 2024, primarily to our Zillow, Trulia and StreetEasy portals. Today, more people search for “Zillow” than “real estate 7” and we have the leading number of active app users in the residential real estate industry 8. As a result, Zillow is the most visited 9 and trusted 10 brand in the online real estate industry.

•Living database of homes and superior data science and technology advantages. Our living database of approximately 165 million U.S. homes is the result of substantial investment, sophisticated economic and statistical analysis and complex data aggregation of multiple sources of property, transaction and listing data, including user generated updates to more than 45 million property records. This data is the foundation of our proprietary Zestimate, Rent Zestimate, Zillow Home Value Index, Zillow Observed Rent and Zillow Observed Renter Demand Index models, as well as our housing and business forecasts. Access to data also enables product innovation like our 3D touring and interactive floor plan products.

•Superior industry partnerships. We aim to partner with high-performing and service-focused industry partners who share our interests in providing the best-possible services to our shared customers. Zillow Group maintains strong partnerships and relationships with thousands of leading real estate agents, brokers, mortgage professionals, property managers, landlords, home builders, regional MLSs and more. Continually enhancing our partner network enables us to implement new products and features, introduce more customers to our best-performing partners and offer our shared customers an improved end-to-end transaction experience, including mortgages.

•Experienced, proven management team. We have a highly experienced management team who have successfully built Zillow and other brands into category leaders. We continue to add and develop executive talent with deep experience in technology and e-commerce businesses. We believe the skills and experiences of our management team provide strategic insights and abilities to deliver a seamless real estate transaction experience for our customers.

•Strong financial position. Our cash position, minimal debt obligations and operating cash flow give us the flexibility to continue to invest in our strategy. We are mindful of our costs, while prioritizing our investments to drive our revenue growth and pursue the large opportunities we see ahead of us, as we target sustainable profitable growth.

Total Addressable Market

We participate in large addressable markets of buying, selling, renting and financing residential real estate in the U.S. Our TAM includes Zillow’s estimate of total industry transaction fees derived from residential real estate transactions. In recent

5 Source: Estimate derived from Zillow internal estimates as of January 2025 of more than 12 million rental households moving to a new rental in 2024 as compared to 4.2 million existing and new homes sold in 2024 according to residential real estate data collected and estimated by Zillow Group, as published monthly on our site as of January 2025 and U.S. Census Bureau’s Monthly New Residential Sales, December 2024.

6 Source: 2024 U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey dated February 5, 2025

7 Source: 2024 Google Trends report

8 Source: data.ai for January 2024 - December 2024

9 Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform Key Measures, Real Estate, Total Audience, December 2024, U.S. report

10 Source: Life Story Research 2024 America’s Most Trusted® Home Search Website Study years, we have invested in software services, including the acquisition of Follow Up Boss and the expansion of offerings through our ShowingTime+ suite of services, to further enhance our ability to facilitate real estate transactions with both buyers and sellers. In addition, we provide important adjacent services, such as mortgages through Zillow Home Loans. Our TAM also includes the rentals marketplace which includes rentals advertising and property management software spend.

Our TAM has been affected in recent years by macroeconomic conditions that have driven low housing inventory, volatility in mortgage interest rates, home price fluctuations, and volatility in rental occupancy rates. These factors have impacted the number of real estate transactions, need for advertising in our rentals marketplace, and demand for adjacent services. We believe we are well positioned to address existing and future demand for real estate transactions. The amounts listed below represent the estimated total industry size associated with these opportunities for the year ended December 31, 2024 (in billions):

We also may explore additional opportunities in the future, including but not limited to, home insurance, home renovation services, moving services and home appraisal services.

Seasonality

Portions of our business have historically been affected by seasonal fluctuations in the residential real estate market, advertising spend and other factors. We generally expect Residential and Rentals revenue to peak in the three months ended June 30th or September 30th, consistent with the average number of visits and unique users which have historically peaked during the same period. Within Mortgages revenue, we believe that seasonality would result in higher purchase origination volumes in the spring and summer high seasons, and our Connect and Custom Quote mortgage marketing products have displayed similar seasonal fluctuations. While our seasonality in revenue has been masked by macroeconomic factors such as interest rate and home price increases and volatility and tight housing inventory levels in recent years, the effects of our strategic initiatives have begun to offset the impacts of seasonality in 2024 due to product growth across our revenue categories.

Competition

Our business depends on our ability to successfully attract, retain and provide consumers with products and services that make real estate transactions more seamless.

The residential real estate landscape is highly fragmented and competitive from the beginning of the search process through the closing of a transaction, typically with single point service providers. Approximately 4.2 million existing and new homes were sold in the U.S. in 202416, with over 201,000 real estate brokerages 17 and over 70,000 mortgage lenders 18 providing their services across more

11 Sources: Estimate derived from TTV and Zillow’s internal average industry commission rates as of January 2025. TTV is calculated as existing homes sold during the period multiplied by the average existing home sales price during the same period according to residential real estate data collected and estimated by Zillow Group, as published monthly on our site.

12 Sources: 2024 Mortgage Bankers Association Reports; estimate derived from annual purchase mortgage origination volumes and average industry origination fees; excludes refinance mortgage origination volumes.

13 Sources: American Land Title Association; estimate derived from quarterly title insurance premiums for 2024.

14 Sources: 2024 U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey dated February 5, 2025 and Zillow Group internal data and estimates; estimate derived from average monthly rent, annual rental unit inventory, average industry turnover rates and average advertising spend per unit.

15 Source: November 2024 report published by Fortune Business Insights which estimates North America’s annual property management market opportunity

16 Source: Estimate derived from residential real estate data collected and estimated by Zillow Group, as published monthly on our site as of January 2025 and U.S. Census Bureau’s Monthly New Residential Sales, December 2024.

17 Source: National Association of REALTORS® 2023 Profile of Real Estate Firms report

18 Source: Q2 2024 Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System Industry Report than 500 different MLSs that span the country 19. In 2024, there was over $1.2 trillion of purchase mortgage origination volume 20. Unlike for sale, there is no MLS equivalent in rentals, which makes it challenging to aggregate the estimated 49 million rental units in the U.S. market 21.

We compete for real estate customers with companies that provide technology, products and services for them. Factors that may influence customer decisions include the quality of the experience, value and utility of the services offered, the breadth, depth and accuracy of information available, and brand awareness and reputation. For example, our Premier Agent products compete for customers based on price, visibility, perceived and actual value and quality of service. For buyers shopping for a mortgage, Zillow Home Loans competes with other mortgage originators based on a combination of interest rates, origination fees, product selection, brand awareness and trust and the level of service we provide. Zillow Rentals competes for customers based on rental prices, property availability, advertising products and the quality of the rental listings and management services.

In addition, our business depends on our ability to attract and retain leading industry partners to advertise and provide services to our consumer base. We compete for real estate partners based on the perceived transaction readiness of consumers, return on investment, price and product offerings and the effectiveness and relevance of our products and services. Based on these and other factors, real estate partners could select other companies to work with to provide relevant and timely real estate, new construction, mortgage and rental information and services. We also compete for a share of our partners’ overall marketing budgets with traditional media as well as word-of-mouth referrals and leads from yard signs and other marketing.

Intellectual Property

We regard our intellectual property as a key differentiator that is critical to our success and we rely on a combination of intellectual property laws, trade-secret protection, and contractual agreements to protect our proprietary technology and data.

Our Zestimate feature, which we consider to be a significant competitive advantage with respect to customer engagement, leverages patented, proprietary, automated valuation models to provide real-time home value estimates. As of December 31, 2024, we have 122 patents of varying lengths issued and 193 patent applications pending in the U.S. and internationally. These patents cover a variety of proprietary techniques relevant to our products and services, including determining a current value for real estate property and the collection, storage and display of home attribute values and creating interactive floor plans.

In addition, awareness and loyalty to our brand enables us to effectively attract and retain our customers and employees. To support our brand, we have registered, or applied for the registration of, trademarks, service marks and copyrights in the U.S. and several other jurisdictions, including “Zillow,” “Zestimate,” and the Z in a house logo. We are also the registered holder of a variety of domestic and international domain names. We have licensed in the past, and we may license in the future, certain of our proprietary rights to third parties.

To further protect our proprietary rights, we enter into confidentiality and proprietary rights agreements with our employees, consultants, contractors and business partners. Our employees and contractors are also subject to invention assignment provisions. We control the use of our proprietary technology, data and intellectual property through provisions in both our general and product-specific terms of use and other restrictions on our mobile applications and websites.

Government Regulation

We operate in an increasingly complex legal and regulatory environment. Our business and the products and services that we offer are affected by a continually expanding and evolving range of local, state, federal, and international laws and regulations. For additional information on government regulation refer to Part I, Item 1A (Risk Factors—Risks Related to Regulatory Compliance and Legal Matters) of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Human Capital Resources

At Zillow, we believe that our long-term success is dependent upon attracting, developing and retaining talented employees, and maintaining a culture that allows each employee to do their best work. We value integrity, accountability, collaboration, creativity, respect and transparency as central to our core values.

19 Source: Real Estate Standards Organization in 2024

20 Source: 2024 Mortgage Bankers Association Report

21 Source: 2024 U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey dated February 5, 2025

As of December 31, 2024, we had 6,856 employees. We seek to lead and enable capabilities, practices, and systems that produce high employee engagement and more effective products and services. In alignment with our business goals, we partner across the enterprise to embed inclusive, equitable practices in the ways we work together and serve our stakeholders. We are committed to ensuring all employees in similar roles with similar qualifications are paid equitably in base salary. We have conducted pay equity analyses for many years and continue to be committed to pay equity. In 2024, our analyses have confirmed that we continue to have pay equity across genders and race.

Zillow as a Flexible Workforce

Through our flexible workforce and our investments in recruiting, retaining, developing, and employee feedback, we are setting the standard for great employee experiences and a positive work culture. These investments have significantly increased our applicant pool and lead to lower employee attrition. We offer nearly all Zillow employees the choice to work from wherever they are most productive. We continue to evolve our flexible work model to more effectively use our time together, provide more opportunities to work asynchronously, and allow all employees to thrive, regardless of location. Our base pay compensation frameworks seek to prioritize performance over geographic location when making pay decisions. This compensation philosophy allows us to compete for talent nationally.

Our offices will continue to be a place for teams to come together to support productivity and collaboration. Since our permanent move to a flexible workforce, we have redesigned our physical workspaces to provide more space for collaboration and engagement, with specific focus on creating event spaces for team gatherings. In 2024, we continued to reduce our office footprint to better align with our needs, considering local and traveling employee populations.

Career and Leadership Development

At Zillow Group, we believe each of our employees should have the tools and support they need to grow their careers through experiences, resources and connections. We have a dedicated Talent Success team, which creates educational resources and conducts training on a wide range of topics including job-specific onboarding, effective communication, collaboration, as well as sophisticated leadership training programs and experiences with focused learning tracks for both new managers and experienced leaders. We continue to offer online learning opportunities through Zillow University, our internal online training platform. Zillow Group employees have completed over 80,000 hours of content in 2024 on the Zillow University and LinkedIn Learning® platforms.

A key piece in development is cultivating a learning culture where learning is a habit, and learning agility is at the forefront. We have developed a robust Learning and Development portfolio that includes a number of key career development programs that support our employees to equip them with the knowledge and experience to grow their careers. Below is a summary of certain of these programs:

•Leadership Entrance Experience Program is a self-paced curriculum designed for individual contributors to explore people management and develop their leadership skills.

•Professional skills development through courses like Public Speaking, Insights Discovery® workshops, and access to virtual coaching.

•Access to development platforms that connect employees to mentors, professional coaches, and peers to aid in reaching career goals.

Our people managers play a critical role in moving our business forward by coaching their team, developing their talent and providing strong communication to create team engagement. To help achieve this goal, we utilize our Leadership Expectations, a leadership development guide that outlines our Leadership Philosophy, provides the foundation of our leadership development programs and sets forth our expectations for leaders and the behaviors that are essential to create a consistent leadership experience at Zillow Group. In 2024, we continued to host virtual summits for managers that offered peer-to-peer learning focused on setting goals, communication, leading through change, developing talent, conscious inclusion and energizing and rewarding teams.

Talent Rewards

Talent Rewards connects compensation, benefits, and immigration/mobility programs whose purpose is to reinforce talent attraction, retention and development in support of Zillow’s culture. Throughout 2024, we have built the foundation of connecting investments across these programs to more clearly articulate our value proposition to employees and external candidates. We conduct ongoing reviews of employee compensation to align rewards practices with market expectations.

In addition, our robust benefits are reflected in investments in physical, family, mental and financial wellness programs to meet the needs of our employees. These benefits include workplace-location flexibility, competitive health care coverage, fully paid parental leave, a sabbatical program, wellness reimbursements, student loan support, caregiver resources, fertility and family planning support, LGBTQ+ provider navigation support and enhanced offerings around mental health. We have also updated our benefits program with a new well-being platform that allows employees to have more flexibility in how they use our wellness benefits. These ongoing investments continue to reinforce Zillow’s commitment to promoting an equitable, healthy, focused and high-performing workforce.

Where You Can Find More Information

Our filings with the SEC, including our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports, are available on the “Investors” section of our website at www.zillowgroup.com, free of charge, as soon as reasonably practicable after the electronic filing of these reports with the SEC. The information contained on our website is not a part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K or any other document we file with the SEC.

Investors and others should note that Zillow Group announces material financial information to its investors using its press releases, SEC filings and public conference calls and webcasts. Zillow Group intends to also use the following channels as a means of disclosing information about Zillow Group, its services and other matters and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD:

•Zillow Group Investor Relations Site (https://investors.zillowgroup.com)

•Zillow Group Blog (https://www.zillowgroup.com/news/)

•Zillow Group X Account (https://X.com/zillowgroup)

•Zillow Group LinkedIn Account (https://www.linkedin.com/company/zillow)

The information Zillow Group posts through these channels may be deemed material. Accordingly, investors should monitor these channels, in addition to following Zillow Group’s press releases, SEC filings and public conference calls and webcasts. This list may be updated from time to time and reflects current updated channels as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The information we post through these channels is not a part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K or any other document we file with the SEC, and the inclusion of our website addresses, X Account and LinkedIn Account are as inactive textual references only.