Zillow Shares Explode after Company Reports Quarterly Earnings

Online real estate database Zillow just reported its quarterly results for the first quarter and shares were soaring as traders digested the results.

The company posted a narrower loss than expected, and sales that increases YOY, topping Wall Street’s expectations.
Shares of the stock soared over 15% in after-hours trading on Thursday.

For the first quarter, Zillow saw a loss of $67.5 million, or 33 cents per share. This was wider than the company’s loss from the year-ago quarter of 10 cents per share but was narrower than the Wall Street consensus estimate of a loss of 34 cents per share, according to a survey of analysts conducted by FactSet.

Revenue was $454.1 million for the period, an increase of 39.6% and better than the $432.1 million expected, according to data compiled by FactSet.

Zillow said that it bought 898 homes during the period, marking an 80% when compared to its fourth quarter of 2018. The company also sold 414 homes during the first three-month period of 2019, about triple the amount from the previous quarter.

CEO Rich Barton said on the earnings call, “We are leaning into early success and are accelerating our investment in Zillow Offers. Today we are announcing plans to enter another six markets by the end of Q1 2020, bringing our total announced markets to 20. In Q1 we received more than 35,000 seller request and that demand is rapidly accelerating.”

He added, “We now receive one request every 2 minutes, which is nearly $200 million in potential transaction value per day. During the quarter, Zillow sold 414 homes and purchased 898 homes, up dramatically from our Q4 transaction volume.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in Zillow Group Inc Class A (NASDAQ: ZG) and have not been compensated for this article.