House Flipper Zillow Lost $109K (37%) Per Flip, Net Loss Triples, Shares Soar
by Wolf Richter • May 10, 2019 • 48
But this new & horrendous house flipping operation inflated revenues “more than expected.”
Zillow, which has generated an unbroken series of annual losses as a public company since its IPO in 2011, has figured out how to lose even more money, a lot more money, and at the same time boost revenues and get its shares to jump: house flipping.
In its quarterly earnings report Thursday evening, Zillow disclosed the dollars and cents of its newest enterprise, “Zillow Offers,” which buys and sells homes. The company describes this as “a new, hassle-free way to buy and sell homes directly through Zillow.”
The report splits out the business segments, including the “Homes” segment, which is its house flipping operation.
In terms of timing: The revenues, costs, and expenses associated with buying and selling the house are booked on the income statement in the quarter in which the sale of the house closes.
So let’s see how Zillow’s new thingy did in the quarter ended March 31:
Sold 414 homes.
Sales proceeds added $128.5 million to revenues, for an average selling price of $310,400 per home.
The purchase cost of these homes added $122.4 million to cost of sales, for an average purchase price of $295,700 per home.
This amounts to an average gross profit (selling price minus purchase cost) of a meager $14,700, or 4.9% per flip.
But it costs money to buy homes, get them ready to flip, market them, finance them until they’re sold, and deal with the transactions, in a corporate manner. So Zillow booked the following expenses associated with its home flipping operations:
$20.8 million in sales and marketing expenses
$12.3 million in technology and development expenses
$14.4 million in general and administrative expenses
$3.8 million in “segment interest” expenses.
So, revenues of $128.5 million from selling the homes, minus $173.7 million in costs and expenses associated with these home sales, for a loss on its home flipping operations of $45.2 million.
This loss of $45.2 million on 414 home flips means:
Zillow lost $109,190 per flip on average.
Zillow lost 37% on each flip on average.
So this is a horrendous business.
