SEATTLE — Zillow appointed a new CEO Wednesday, elevating a longtime insider as the nation’s sluggish housing market continues to weigh down the real estate industry.
Incoming CEO Jeremy Wacksman isn’t a new face at the Seattle-based company best known for its real estate listing site. Until Wednesday, he was Zillow’s chief operating officer, overseeing engineering, sales and other teams at the company.
But he takes the helm of the company as high mortgage rates continue to slow the housing market. Nationwide home sales were down 5% from a year ago in June, the latest month available from the National Association of Realtors. The industry is also in the midst of upheaval as a settlement from a lawsuit against NAR could change the way real estate agents are paid.
Effects from those changes may be limited for Zillow because the company does not directly employ real estate agents, but Zillow acknowledged in a recent investor filing that “if agent commissions are meaningfully impacted, it could reduce the marketing budgets of real estate partners” who pay for advertising or leads from Zillow or could “reduce the number of real estate partners participating in the industry, which could adversely affect our financial condition.”
In an earnings call Wednesday, Zillow reported a net loss of $17 million during the second quarter of this year, an improvement from the loss of $35 million during the same period last year.
The company brought in $572 million in revenue during the quarter, up 13% from last year, driven by growth in the company’s mortgage division and an increasing number of landlords and tenants using the company’s rental products.
Even so, traffic to the company’s websites and mobile apps was flat, a sign of the slow market.
Wacksman told investors during a Wednesday earnings call “not much is going to change” under his leadership as he attempts to “scale and accelerate” the company’s growth.
“My focus and strategy is more of what we’ve been doing,” he said.
Since its 2005 founding, Zillow has branched out to various corners of the real estate business with varying levels of success. After getting into the algorithm-driven house-flipping business known as “iBuying,” Zillow laid off a quarter of its staff and shuttered that endeavor in 2021. The company failed to accurately predict the costs of buying and selling homes in a red-hot housing market and, as the market began to cool, faced the uncomfortable situation of having paid more for homes than it could sell them for.
Wacksman, 47, is the company’s third CEO. Rich Barton, who served two stints in the top role, will remain on Zillow’s board as co-executive chair alongside his fellow co-founder Lloyd Frink. Barton, Zillow’s first CEO, left in 2010 and returned to his position in 2019, replacing Spencer Rascoff as the company’s shares were sinking in value.
In a statement, Barton said the company is “performing well” despite a “challenging” real estate environment “due in no small part to the leadership of Jeremy Wacksman.”
Wacksman has held various executive roles at Zillow since arriving in 2009. As COO, his work amounted to “running most of the company and all the lines of business,” Barton told investors Wednesday.
Zillow’s share price climbed about 12% to $45 in after-hours trading Wednesday following the CEO announcement and the second-quarter earnings report. That share price is down 18% from a year ago.
Prior to Zillow, he worked in marketing and product management in Microsoft’s Xbox division, according to his LinkedIn profile. Wacksman has also worked with startups, advising or serving on the boards of Rover.com, GoFundMe and other companies.
