The article states the model is not to profit through appreciation. So where is the profit?
> Unlike traditional home-flippers who bet they can make money on home appreciation, Zillow plans to profit by charging sellers a fee in addition to agent commissions.
For this to work at scale a lot of people must be in a situation where they can't afford the holding costs associated with waiting for their house to sell for what it's worth. Or a lot of people's houses have appreciated sufficiently that Zillow's fee is a non-issue. If anyone knows if this is true, I guess Zillow would.
My argument is that Zillow is always going to come in under-market. That's their whole model, and in order for it to work a lot of sellers need to be in a financial situation that allows them to say 'fuck it, I'll take the Zillow price and be done with this'.