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It's hard to say how much they were overpaying. If they "overpayed" by 20% - almost certainly someone else was willing to "overpay" by at least 10% if not 15%.

Unless it's a pretty strong buyers market (spoiler: 2020-now wasn't) - you're gonna have a tough time buying a lot of houses and not "overpaying".

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Exactly this. We got a house in hot market last Spring at 17% over asking. Did we overpay? Almost certainly. Did we lose out on 5 bids prior by "only" overbidding 5-15%? Yes. In a sea of exuberant buyers, you have to be the most exuberant. Not a great feeling at the time, but we plan on this being a keeper, and the timing was right for us.

There were a few Reddit threads on people who sold to Zillow. They certainly overpaid.

We’re talking listing for $450k, get real human offers of $485k, asking Zillow for offer and getting $510k.

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