PHOTO: Zillow
- Zillow’s challenge is turning the millions of people who dreamily browse its website into actual homebuyers, CEO Rich Barton told CNBC on Thursday.
- The online real estate marketplace saw a 19% increase in visitors to its website and app in 2020 during the pandemic.
- “We monetize a single-digit percentage of the people that come visit us right now,” Barton said.
Zillow CEO Rich Barton told CNBC on Thursday the company hopes to turn the wave of people who dreamily browsed its website last year into actual homebuyers.
Zillow has long been associated with so-called “real estate porn,” Barton acknowledged in a “Squawk on the Street” interview. He noted a headline in a San Francisco newspaper in 2006 made the comparison shortly after Zillow launched.
It’s an association that took off during the coronavirus pandemic. Many people turned to Zillow with the legitimate purpose of buying a home, evidenced by the company’s 22% revenue growth in 2020. But another cohort emerged and turned to Zillow for a sort of pandemic escapism, perhaps searching for a dream home in a new city even though moving there wasn’t a realistic possibility.
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