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Zillow lost money because they weren't willing to lose money

stevenbuccini.com

141–150 of 386 posts

Re: Zillow lost money because they weren't willing to lose money

#141

While no doubt Zillow made many of these mistakes, I think the reality is more sobering that the author of the article realizes. The more grim possibility, is that Zillow got out of the house buying business, not because they weren't good enough at it, but because they _were_ good enough at it to realize that it was at the top. If buyers want more now for their house, than it can be sold for in a few months time (whi…

But they lost money last quarter while the market was still rising. Seems there was some problem with their prediction process.

Their plan wasn't to flip homes in a month or two as far as I'm aware so that's expected if they get out.

Re: Zillow lost money because they weren't willing to lose money

#142
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well as someone who lives in a fairly regulated housing market (Berlin) I'm happy about all the regulations you've mentioned as they prevent negative externalities which would benefit real-estate developers at the cost of everyone else. Imo targeting a specific population density is within the mandate of local government, as too-high density causes all sorts of issues from traffic to health and everything in between.…

Seriously? Berlin's tower blocks are the favelas of the developed world. Also, the reason why Berlin hasn't had the same pressure is because it is one of the few cities in the developed world that has actually shrunk over a multi-decade period. It is very easy to limit population density when there is no pressure on housing. And, ofc, the historical division of the city meant that it had to develop more than one cent…

You've proven my point exactly. Many of the the Plattenbauten (GDR-era block housing) could not be built in Berlin today because of current regulations. Berlin is targeting a moderate population density with mixed-use neighbourhood, which is the recommendation of subject-matter experts and makes it in general a very nice place to live. There's a huge desire by developers to increase density within Berlin and I have no doubt it would increase massively if there was no check against this.

Nobody is arguing that the entire US would become like Delhi, but can you seriously hold the opinion that housing deregulation would not result in mass production of low-quality housing near major population centers?

There are problems with extremes on both ends. For instance the NIMBY-driven housing policy in SF is not what is needed to create sustainable housing. But is a somewhat unique case, and it doesn't mean an extreme swing in the other direction towards deregulation would lead to a good outcome. Sensible housing regulation is undoubtedly a requirement for sustainable urbanization.

Re: Zillow lost money because they weren't willing to lose money

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't eliminate their fees (fee is the wrong term to use). Their model was built, maybe this changed, on being within 200bps of breakeven. Obviously, they only bought when the model would say: this will make money. Or are you saying they looked at the model, the model says you will lose money, and they decided to do it...that makes no sense, even for SV. Flip this around, are you saying that if the model was co…

Look up their “project ketchup”. Their managers overrode the models and cut both fees and reno cost to win more deals. The WSJ and Business Insider wrote about this. I was at Zillow for many years and the insiders I know tell me the articles are correct but just lacking some nuance. Many people leap to their own reasons why Zillow offers failed but the most proximate cause really does seem to be management and operat…

Saying that management bought at prices higher than model is not the same thing as saying they bought houses expecting to lose money. All that was said was that management increased the prices they would pay and changed the model so they could pay more. Nothing validates the model (again, this is a common-sense conclusion given the informational disparity that Zillow was at).

Re: Zillow lost money because they weren't willing to lose money

#144
post #54

Good riddance. If large-scale house flipping took off, we might actually end up in a scenario where housing was treated as a speculative asset, with empty houses getting flipped between investors looking to make a quick buck, further lowering the supply of actual places to live (because housing units remain empty while being flipped), driving up the cost for families who just want a place to live. Oh wait...

Half way through I was already clicking "Reply" thinking "...is this guy for real?!", only to see the "Oh wait..."

The amount of social media content revolving around "how I became a milionaire/how I reached my first million" and the common factor is "I bought a house in 201*", then I'd say something is a bit off...

Either there's massive speculation, or 1 million isn't what it used to be, or worst: both.

Re: Zillow lost money because they weren't willing to lose money

#145
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toxoplasmosis is a scary thing.

Not exactly. From what I read it’s almost completely benign in most humans.

Certainly it isn't a issue after they cats no longer live there and it's been cleaned to a reasonable standard. If it knocks 20 grand off the price of the house it's worth spending 2k to have everything deep cleaned.

Re: Zillow lost money because they weren't willing to lose money

#146
Real estate is one of the few markets where non-experts can make money, where it’s not a hyper-liquid winner-take-all game. Coupled with this is the fact that housing is a necessity and owning a home leads people to invest in their communities more than if they were renting, I think it’s a good thing if Zillow (and OpenDoor, etc.) fail at pushing everyday people out of the business of real estate investing. Here’s hoping we see some regulation—the illiquidity of the home buying market is not a problem that needs to be solved.

Re: Zillow lost money because they weren't willing to lose money

#147

I think the article makes an interesting point about this being the first of many, but I disagree with the initial tone of the article. It seemed to paint Zillow as being afraid of loss. On the contrary, I viewed Zillow as demonstrating good common sense and an ability to make hard decisions. To me it shows that they aren't committing the sunken cost fallacy, and are willing to cut an entire 25% of the company and ta…

I agree, I think they realized it wouldn’t work and made a hard decision to save the company. Zillow realized the only time their ask was hit is when it was at a premium to the actual market price. If they used competitive offers, they’d never have the winning bid. In a hot market where you’re offering a premium, you’re going to have owners of lower quality properties accepting your offer, while owners of higher qual…

Trying to beat an auction with a single offer (and still make a profit) sounds like a very difficult task, whether it’s done by a human or AI.

Re: Zillow lost money because they weren't willing to lose money

#148
post #28

> They thought they needed to build a machine learning model when they really needed to build an entirely new organization, one that possessed the technical and cultural mindset necessary to succeed in this space. I totally agree. It's not impossible to imagine their model working: why couldn't you serve as a market-maker for homes at a large scale, especially with the unique insights Zillow could have based on their…

> a machine learning model

Not to mention that generally ML models are not useful for assessing risk. ML nearly always focuses almost exclusively on some point estimate rather than a distribution of what you believe about a value. The former case is all about expectation and the latter about variance. Correctly modeling variance is far more essential to risk modeling than expectation alone.

I recall talking to a startup that was attempting to model credit risk by building a binary classier for defaulting, and trying to figure out a way to use this to score people for credit (obviously they chose to ignore the fact that there is a huge industry with decades of experience in assessing consumer credit risk).

They focused exclusively on finding more advanced models to get better AUC without even realizing that that's not important. I mentioned that the most simplistic credit score model should at least model P(default|info) and then set the interest rate to - P(default|X)/(P(default|X)-1) to break even and they couldn't comprehend this basic reasoning. It was doubly hilarious since their population's base default rate was such that the solution to this equation was higher than the legal limit they could charge for interest.

In the early part of the current startup/tech boom there was a focus on "disruption", the idea that new ideas could easily dominate old ways of doing things. But for many industries, such as credit/lending and real estate, you should at least understand the basic principles of how these "old ways" work before trying to disrupt them.

Re: Zillow lost money because they weren't willing to lose money

#149
post #28

> They thought they needed to build a machine learning model when they really needed to build an entirely new organization, one that possessed the technical and cultural mindset necessary to succeed in this space. I totally agree. It's not impossible to imagine their model working: why couldn't you serve as a market-maker for homes at a large scale, especially with the unique insights Zillow could have based on their…

> I.e. the price per square foot might make a property look like a steal, while something like a sewer main nearby, or problematic neighbor This is the real problem. Even if they have the historical data for that exact house/unit, it won't help them in cases such as: * That nice view of the woods out the window is now blocked by a massive radio antenna that was just built there * The river running through the back ya…

anectodal evidence, but yes, an apartment I lived in was 30k cheaper than everything in the house, and the estimate. So I was really happy to have caught a bargain. Then after moving in it turned out the neighbors were unbearable. The father had developed a DIY habit during covid and he would regularly put together furniture at 11PM. Then they had two monsters for kids. Would literally jump around uncontrollably for hours, and for some reason, through some defect or lack in the sound proofing, the sounds were even amplified. Every time they went down to the playground the kids were literally screaming at the top of their lungs the whole way down. I nearly lost my sanity and fortunately could sell it at at 2k loss in a year.
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