Revenue jumps 18% as Zillow touts ‘indispensable’ platform
Rentals and mortgages fueled the 18% gain, with tech as the linchpin. “We are rapidly becoming an AI-native company,” Zillow’s CEO said.
Zillow made a lot of headlines in 2025, but it wasn't all good news.
Although the home search giant was reporting healthy gains in revenue and income, it was also embroiled in litigation for the second half of the year — a financial drain and a potential source of concern for some investors.
But in the first quarter of 2026, the search portal was back in the news for a different reason: the launch of Zillow Preview, a pre-market listing option introduced in March that has since gained more than 60 brokerage participants, led to a partnership with Realtor.com and generated plenty of buzz.
The company has also continued to report strong financial results, announcing on May 6 that net income rose significantly and total revenue increased 18% year-over-year in Q1, with the mortgage division showing the biggest gains (up 56%) followed by rentals at 42% — "one of our most compelling growth opportunities," Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman told investors during a quarterly earnings call.
That momentum, Wacksman said, reflects "the consistency of our execution, the strength of our brand, our audience engagement, and the durability of our multi-year strategy."
What Zillow had to say
On AI: "We are rapidly becoming an AI-native company," Wacksman told investors on Wednesday. "We're embedding AI throughout the real estate experience in ways that make Zillow increasingly indispensable, and we're innovating with speed and intention."
Wacksman said Zillow has three distinct advantages in leveraging AI as an accelerator: proprietary content, including 3D Home tours, interactive floor plans, virtual staging and SkyTour; context, referring to the portal's ability to tap into consumer needs; and integration, meaning its connected ecosystem that creates "a single, coherent experience" for consumers.
And for agents? Zillow is also embedding AI in agent and loan officer workflows "to help them better serve customers and work more efficiently," Wacksman said.
On Zillow Preview: A day ahead of the earnings call, Zillow announced that Preview listings would also be displayed on Realtor.com, marking a significant expansion of the program. "This collaboration unlocks more visibility for more people, supporting a healthier housing marketplace," the companies said.
It also unlocks more revenue opportunities: Buyers who visit Preview listings on Realtor.com get connected to a Zillow partner agent if they click "contact agent" or request a tour. "That creates incremental transactions for a Zillow Preferred Agent, which is incremental revenue to us," Zillow CFO Jeremy Hofmann told Real Estate News.
On the company's stock: Zillow's share price has fallen more than 30% since the beginning of the year, but Hofmann emphasized that financial performance has been strong, calling the decline a "dislocation," or temporary mispricing. He pointed to the company's significant stock repurchase during the quarter as a move that "reflects the conviction we have in the long-term value of the business and our commitment to return to capital when the opportunity is compelling."
Zillow's stock price was down 6-7% during after-hours trading, however, likely due to the company's Q2 revenue outlook landing slightly below analyst expectations.
Key numbers
Revenue: $708 million in Q1, up 18% year-over-year. Residential revenue increased 8% to $450 million, mortgage revenue was up 56% to $64 million and rentals revenue climbed 42% to $183 million.
Cash and investments: $788 million at the end of Q1, down from $1.3 billion at the end of 2025.
Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization): $182 million in the first quarter, up from $153 million a year earlier.
Net income/loss: A gain of $46 million in Q1, up from $8 million in the first quarter of 2025. Net income margin was 6%, a 520-basis-point increase year-over-year.
Traffic and visits: Traffic across all Zillow Group websites and apps averaged 220 million monthly unique users in Q1, down 3% year-over-year. Visits were also down 3%, but average monthly unique visitors rose 12% to 127 million, based on Comscore data, making Zillow "the only large company in its category to increase the amount of the real estate audience we reach over the past six quarters," according to a news release.
Q2 outlook: Zillow estimates revenue will be in the $750 million to $765 million range in the second quarter.
Notable moves
In March, Zillow debuted "AI mode," a feature that allows home shoppers to use conversational prompts to narrow their search and remembers an individual's preferences and previous search sessions. The company also partnered with Google NotebookLM to offer homebuying guidance through a designated notebook inside the AI research tool. Both moves aim to produce "more informed, higher-intent clients," reducing the time agents need to spend on client education, Zillow said.
On the people front, the company promoted three longtime employees in February — Christopher Roberts as chief product officer, Marissa Brooks as SVP of corporate affairs and Jon Lim as SVP of product management for Zillow Rentals — while also cutting around 200 roles earlier in the year.