Zillow focuses on consumers, agents to drive future growth

It’s been a messy few months Zillow Groupincluding a copyright case from CoStara class action consumer RESPA lawsuit, and antitrust suits from both Compass and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). While some of the listing portal giant’s competitors have said it’s a thing of the past, Zillow executives are confident their company is well-positioned to be successful in the years to come.

“Zillow is built for where the industry is going, not where it has been,” Jeremy Wacksman, the company’s CEO, told investors and analysts Thursday evening during his company’s third-quarter earnings call. “We have gone beyond home searching to become a diversified, transaction-oriented platform that integrates the different steps of the housing journey, connecting with an agent, touring, exploring financing options and more, and allowing agents to guide consumers through it successfully.”

Much of Zillow’s confidence comes from the belief that it has earned its past success by being a “consumer-focused, product-driven company,” a strategy that executives want to continue to rely on in the future.

“We deliver the seamless, end-to-end digital experience that consumers and, increasingly, the real estate industry expect and depend on, and we rapidly deliver innovation across our ecosystem and across the customer journey,” said Wacksman.

Focusing on the future

While Zillow’s critics may believe its extinction is imminent, Zillow executives point to the company’s recently announced app integration with ChatGPT.

“We take the power of our brand and audience seriously and are always looking for ways to meet consumer needs in an ever-evolving and competitive landscape,” said Wacksman.

Wacksman called the ChatGPT app integration “yet another entry into our ecosystem” and compared it to Zillow as one of the first companies to build an application for mobile devices.

“It’s important to be early, and as we learned then, first-mover advantage pays off when technology changes the way people use the Internet,” Wacksman said. “We are still in the early stages of how AI will transform consumer experiences, but we believe the critical differentiators between those who succeed and those who lag in our category will be user experience, audience quality, unique insights and providing integrated transaction services rather than just lead generation.”

Strong Q3 results

It may be easy for Zillow executives to be optimistic about the future, as their company posted strong financial results in the third quarter of 2025. For the quarter, Zillow posted revenue of $676 million, up 16% year over year, and net income of $10 million, compared to a net loss of $20 million a year ago. All three major segments of the company’s business reported revenue growth during the quarter, with residential revenue up 7% annually to $435 million, mortgage revenue up 36% to $53 million and rental revenue up 41% annually to $174 million.

Growth of the mortgage strategy

According to Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Hoffman, Zillow’s mortgage strategy makes it easier for more buyers to choose financing through Zillow Home Loans“, which he believes is the main driver of mortgage yield growth. During the quarter, ZHL purchase loan volume increased 57% annually to $1.3 billion, but this growth did not come without investigations and allegations of possible RESPA violations.

When it comes to Zillow’s rental operation, which is currently under scrutiny by the FTC and five state attorneys general over its multifamily syndication deal with Redfin, executives attributed the revenue growth to the number of multifamily properties listed on Zillow, which nearly doubled to 69,000 properties over the past two years.

“There is still room to expand, with an estimated total of 140,000 multifamily properties nationwide. Multifamily properties are a key growth driver, and we are expanding both our property count and portfolio share as more major property managers choose to upgrade to more comprehensive advertising packages with us,” said Wacksman.

When asked how the lawsuits will impact Zillow’s rental business in 2026 during the Q&A portion of the call, executives said they expect business to continue as normal and emphasized their belief in their ability to continue to scale this side of the business.

“We’ve been offering multifamily properties to Redfin for about six months now and we’re seeing the benefits for both consumers and property managers,” Wacksman said. “Consumers can see more listings across all our sites and Redfin users now have access to three times the number of rental properties they had when Redfin tried to acquire them on their own, and as a result of the agreement, property managers are seeing a higher ROI. It’s clearly pro-consumer

Executives also briefly discussed the Compass acquisition Everywheretelling investors and analysts that they “see no concerns.” [their] company.”

“We may see more noise around hidden listings and the potential to push more hidden listings to sellers and harm consumers,” Wacksman said. “For us, our listing standards ensure that agents treat their sellers well, and when they go to market a listing, that they make that listing widely available to all buyers. We continue to see the vast majority of the industry adhere to these standards.”

Wacksman said the company expects this behavior to continue because “agents are trying to do the right thing by their sellers.”

Looking ahead, Zillow executives said the key to the company’s future success will be to ignore the noise and focus on the company’s core purpose.

“Behind our strong financial performance is a clear mission: helping millions of people find homes and supporting the professionals who make that possible,” said Wacksman. “As a beloved consumer brand and trusted partner platform, we are proud of the work we do to make the housing journey simple, more transparent and more integrated.”