please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . november 2012 learn how and when to remove this template message zillow group type public traded as nasdaq z nasdaq zg headquarters russell investments center seattle washington key people spencer rascoff ceo stan humphries chief economist 1 revenue us 644.6 million 2015 2 operating income us 149.5 million 2015 3 net income us 148.8 million 2015 4 total assets us3 .1 million 2015 5 total equity us 215.1 million 2015 6 website zillow.com zillow group or simply zillow is an online real estate database company that was founded in 2006 8 and created by rich barton and lloyd frink former microsoft executives and founders of microsoft spin off expedia . spencer rascoff is the current ceo of zillow inc. 1 contents 1 business model 2 acquisitions 3 website features 3.1 zillow mortgage marketplace 3.2 zillow mobile 3.3 zillow advice 3.4 real estate market reports 3.4.1 report for the bellingam area 3.5 neighborhood boundary maps gis data 4 website activity 5 zestimate 6 critique of zestimate accuracy 7 controversy and lawsuits 8 see also 9 references 10 external links business model edit zillow has stated that it is a media company that generates revenue by selling advertising on its web site . in april 2009 zillow announced a partnership to lend its real estate search engine to the web sites of more than 180 united states newspapers as a part of the zillow newspaper consortium . zillow shares advertising revenue from the co branded sites with the newspapers and extends its reach into local markets . 9 in february 2011 zillow and yahoo real estate launched an exclusive partnership creating the largest real estate advertising network on the web according to comscore media metrix . 10 acquisitions edit in april 2011 zillow acquired postlets an online real estate listing creation and distribution platform . terms of the deal were not disclosed publicly . 11 in november 2011 zillow acquired diverse solutions for 7.8 million . 12 in may 2012 zillow acquired rentjuice a software as a service company which allows landlords and property managers to market and lease their rental properties through a set of online tools . rentjuice was acquired for 40 million . 13 on october 31 2012 zillow acquired the real estate shopping and collaboration platform buyfolio . 14 zillow acquired lincoln ne based mortgage technology company mortech for 17 million on november 5 2012 . 15 on november 26 2012 zillow acquired hotpads for 16 million . hotpads founded in 2005 lists real estate and rental listings on a map based web interface . 16 on august 19 2013 zillow acquired streeteasy for 50 million . 17 on july 16 2014 zillow acquired retsly a vancouver b.c. based startup that helps developers access real estate data from multiple listing services mls . 18 on july 28 2014 zillow announced a deal to buy trulia for 3.5 billion . 1 19 on july 22 2015 zillow announced it would acquire dotloop for 108 million . 20 on january 3 2016 zillow announced it would acquire naked apartments for 13 million . 21 website features edit zillow has data on 110 million homes across the united states not just those homes currently for sale . 22 in addition to giving value estimates of homes it offers several features including value changes of each home in a given time frame such as one five or 10 years aerial views of homes and prices of comparable homes in the area . where it can access appropriate public data it also provides basic information on a given home such as square footage and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms . users can also get current estimates of homes if there was a significant change made such as a recently remodeled kitchen . zillow provides an application programming interface api and developer support network . 23 24 25 in december 2006 zillow launched three new pieces of functionality allowing users to post homes for sale and set a make me move price an informal way to pre market a home as well as a real estate wiki . in 2006 zillow teamed with microsoft to offer bird s eye view a feature in microsoft virtual earth that shows in certain areas clearer aerial photographs taken from airplanes rather than conventional satellite imagery . 26 zillow uses this functionality for entertainment focused features on famous homes . 27 in december 2009 zillow expanded its services to include the rental market . 28 the addition of rental listings enabled users to list a home for rent and search for both rental homes and homes for sale . in late 2013 zillow began powering aol real estate . in july 2014 zillow also took over the real estate portal for msn real estate . 29 zillow mortgage marketplace edit on april 3 2008 zillow launched a service called zillow mortgage marketplace . this service allows for borrowers to get custom loan quotes without revealing personally identifying information . 30 31 zillow mobile edit zillow mobile apps allow users to view nearby homes based on the user s location . april 29 2009 iphone application march 18 2010 android application april 2 2010 ipad application march 31 2011 blackberry application july 13 2012 windows phone application 32 november 27 2013 windows 8.1 application november 2015 apple tv application zillow advice edit on december 16 2008 zillow launched zillow advice allowing people to ask real estate questions online and get answers from the web site s community of experts . 33 real estate market reports edit zillow produces home value reports for the nation and over 130 metropolitan statistical areas . the reports identify market trends including but not limited to five and 10 year annualized change negative equity 34 not in citation given short sales and foreclosure transactions . zillow also releases a homeowner confidence survey . 35 the survey is conducted by harris interactive and measures homeowners perceptions about home value changes of their own home and the local market . report for the bellingam area edit on august 26 2016 the bellingham herald published housing prices and rental statistics obtained from zillow 36 which said that these statistics conflicted with those obtained from the housing finance agency . 37 neighborhood boundary maps gis data edit the zillow data team has created a database of nearly 7 000 neighborhood boundaries in the largest cities in the u.s. and made them available via creative commons attribute sharealike license . citation needed website activity edit the company said it had more than 24 million unique visitors in september 2011 representing year over year growth of 103 percent . 38 39 of those users 90 % own a home and more than three quarters are looking to buy or sell within the next two years helping others to buy or sell or looking to rent . zillow claims over 50 million u.s. homes have been viewed . in some cities more than 90 % of all homes that exist have been viewed including san francisco los angeles boston and seattle . zestimate edit zillow determines an estimate zestimate pronounced zest imate for a home based on a range of publicly available information including sales of comparable houses in a neighborhood . zestimate does not take into consideration home specific factors like recent remodeling although there is an option to update the information for a particular home . the accuracy of the zestimate varies by location depending on how much information is publicly available but zillow allows users to check the accuracy of zestimates in their own region against actual sales . citation needed in many u.s. states information on the transfer prices of real estate is readily available and accessible by the general public and is not exclusively held in realtors databases . 40 in march 2011 zillow released rent zestimates which provide estimated rent prices for 90 million homes on both the zillow website and all of its mobile apps . 41 on june 14 2011 zillow changed its algorithm used to calculate zestimates . in addition to changing the current zestimate for millions of homes throughout the country zillow changed historical zestimate value information dating back to 2006 . this resulted in drastic changes in both past and present zestimate values for millions of homeowners . citation needed critique of zestimate accuracy edit in 2007 the wall street journal studied the accuracy of zillow s estimates and found that they often are very good frequently within a few percentage points of the actual price paid . but when zillow is bad it can be terrible . 42 according to fortune zillow has zestimated the value of 57 percent of u.s. housing stock but only 65 percent of that could be considered accurate by its definition within 10 percent of the actual selling price . and even that accuracy isn t equally distributed . 43 fortune cites the state of louisiana as an example where the site is just about worthless . 43 in october 2006 the national community reinvestment coalition filed a complaint with the federal trade commission 44 stating that zillow was intentionally misleading consumers and real estate professionals to rely upon the accuracy of its valuation services despite the full knowledge of the company officials that their valuation automated valuation model avm mechanism is highly inaccurate and misleading . in a letter dated may 4 2007 the ftc elected not to investigate this complaint 45 which was later withdrawn by the ncrc . citation needed real estate agents with specific market knowledge are more likely to know specific factors affecting the sale of a home such as the overall condition of the home room flow landscaping views traffic noise and privacy . these factors have been called unzillowables a term coined in the real estate blogosphere . citation needed zillow may use the last bank assessment or sales transaction for home value . some of this data is very old over twenty years and so even home descriptions may be inaccurate i.e. change in size structure . this may mislead buyers who may feel asking prices are way out of range when compared to the zillow price and work against sellers because zillow lists homes as worth far less than the current value based on bank tax assessments and recent sales . citation needed using data published on the zillow website the typical zestimate error in the united states in july 2016 was 14 000 . 46 controversy and lawsuits edit while factors contributing to estimates are described elsewhere zillow seemingly overemphasis home square footage as the major metric driving property valuation . this method may not be unique to zillow but unduly distorts value expectations . 47 listings in areas where land is priced at high premiums often reflect an identical zillow estimate to that of nearby homes with comparable interior square footage but where the home might be decades older . condition age of home special features proximity to nuisances are insufficiently factored into the estimate . zillow has made some effort tp add balance by including option for owners to provide their own value estimate ; but these figures can be similarly unreliable as being opinion instead of quantifiable . in 2014 zillow faced several lawsuits from former employees at the zillow operation in irvine california alleging violations of california labor code and california business and professions code . 48 on february 26 2016 the u.s. district court for the central district of california certified the class to include anyone who worked as an inside sales consultant at zillow between november 2010 and january 2015 . 49 among the numerous allegations brought by high profile attorneys bobby samini and mark geragos zillow is accused of failing to pay wages failing to pay overtime pay and failing to provide meal and rest breaks