Why Zillow's Depleted iBuying Business Should Bounce Back
Zillow's (NASDAQ: ZG)(NASDAQ: Z) rapidly growing iBuying business, Zillow Offers, has taken a big hit this year but is poised to bounce back. How quickly that happens is uncertain, but the company has the resources and expertise to rapidly return the business -- through which it buys and resells houses -- to its prior size and growth trajectory. Here's the situation.
Zillow rapidly grew its Zillow Offers iBuying business from its inception in 2018 until recently. Through the end of last year, the company had purchased 7,197 homes in total and had resold 4,490 of them, ending 2019 owning 2,707 homes worth $837 million. And the pace of growth was accelerating at an extraordinary rate. Zillow went from buying 19 homes in the second quarter of 2018 to buying 2,291 homes in the third quarter of last year. This rapid scaling was driven by the unit's expansion into more U.S. markets, as well as greater time and experience in older markets.
In early 2019, the company's management team had put forth three-to-five-year targets for Zillow Offers that included buying 5,000 homes per month. The company appeared to be on pace to achieve that number.
Source Fool.com
