I'll second that this article is just wrong. Zillow burned plenty of money in their Offers business. The problem is that all that spending revealed that they performed poorly in a questionable market segment.

Ultimately they were really bad as flippers. More often than not paying more than market price for the homes they bought.

I think the root problem is that this was a panic move. They saw Open Door's success and thought they had no choice but to try and replicate it. But its a questionable business move for Zillow and ultimately they couldn't make it work

Zillow offered to buy my home at 30% more than everyone else in the market for cash, without an inspection, and I wasn't even looking to sell it at the time.