A whodunnit on Zillow

THE TIMING was apt. On November 2nd, just two days after Americans celebrated their scariest annual holiday, news of a suspicious death shocked the stockmarket. Zillow, a giant property and technology firm, said it would shut down its huge instant-buying, or i-buying, business, which uses big data and algorithms to make offers on homes in dozens of cities in America and then swiftly sells them on. The firm expects to lose in excess of $500m in the second half of 2021 after it overpaid for thousands of homes. It will lay off a quarter of its 8,000 employees. It seemed like a business that should be in rude health. By and large it has been a fantastic time to buy a home almost anywhere in America—if you can only snag one: house prices have climbed between 16% and 25% during the past 18 months. So why is Zillow’s i-buying business in the morgue? And whodunnit?Finding the right suspect matters for reasons bigger than the fate of Zillow itself. The i-buying business is one of many examples of firms using a platform to collect big data, analyse it using advanced techniques and empower their algorithms to enable a market to work more smoothly. This trend has pushed down transaction costs in many asset markets, from stocks and bonds to camera equipment and clothing. The fate of Zillow’s i-buying business might indicate that using technology to buy and sell something as idiosyncratic as a house is a flip too far.