Q2 2019 was very good to Zillow. The company reported revenue of $599.6M, a whopping increase of +84% y/y.
Overall, the company’s net loss in Q2 2019, $71.9M reflected its expanding commitment to Zillow’s home buying and selling segment of its business. (The company’s net losses in Q1 2019 totaled $467.5M.) According to co-founder and CEO Rich Barton via InmanNews, “Our Q2 results reflect the momentum we are seeing across our businesses. The demand signal for Zillow Offers is incredibly impressive as seen in the annualized revenue rate going from $0 to $1B in just a year.”
Zillow Homes, under which Zillow Offers operates, saw revenue of $248.9M, doubling that of Q1 2019’s revenue of $128.5M. Its net losses before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in Q2 2019 totaled $56.5M. Each home sold in Q2 2019 made an average of $1,578 prior to interest expenses being added into the mix BUT…after interest expenses each house lost an average of $2,916. The “good” news about this $2,916 loss/house is that this amount is less than the average $3,218 loss/house in Q1 2019 when calculating in interest expenses.
Barton believes that, over time and over scale, the company will earn some 400-500 basis points of return before interest expenses. “…our unit economics should benefit more from other adjacent services like mortgage origination title and escrow. We expect to be able to leverage these services to support Zillow Offers…”
Currently, Zillow Offers is “live” in 15 markets and expects to launch in Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Sacramento, San Antonio, Tampa, and San Diego as we read and write. Barton just announced that the company would expand into Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City and Tucson by 2020 for a total of 26 markets nationwide.
The company’s Internet, Media and Technology sector generated $323.7M in Q2 2019, up from $298.3M in Q1 2019. This sector includes Zillow’s Premier Agent advertising program, its rental/new construction/display ads program and its dot-loop transaction management platform.
And, speaking of Zillow’s Premier Agent Program, the company’s new “flex-pricing” model program will be expanding to Phoenix and Atlanta in Q4 2019, thus replacing its Premier Agent program in those cities. Rather than paying “upfront” for leads based on zip codes in these cities, agents in Phoenix and Atlanta will pay a portion of their commission to Zillow for Zillow leads which come to fruition and actually close in these cities.
How much of their commission would agents be responsible to pay back to Zillow on leads they “got” from Zillow that actually closed? To Be Announced, according to Gregory Schwartz, president of media and marketplace for the company, but “likely to be” in the neighborhood of 35%, or, as Schwartz said, “the industry standard.”
