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For many Americans, the first step in the home-buying process is not calling an agent or visiting an open house — it’s opening Zillow. The online real estate marketplace celebrates its 20th anniversary in February
“The launch of Zillow revolutionized real estate,” said Amanda Pendleton, Zillow’s home trends expert.
Before Zillow existed, finding out which homes were for sale or how much a property was worth required digging through public records at city hall or relying entirely on a real estate agent. Information was more difficult to access and often outdated.
“Zillow changed that entirely 20 years ago, really turning on the lights for people, providing them with insights into a market that had really been in the shadows for decades,” Pendleton said. “The day that Zillow launched, so many people went online to check their Zestimate, the whole site crashed. So Zillow broke the internet on day one.”
In the years since, browsing Zillow has evolved into a national pastime — Pendleton said that’s especially true among millennials. Many are settling down, starting families or simply dreaming about what their next chapter could look like.
“You’ve got this huge generational group thinking about real estate because of their life stage,” she said. “(Zillow) makes it a lot easier for you to imagine, and sort of envision yourself and all the possibilities that a move could bring.”
Transparency has always been at the core of Zillow’s mission, she said. The company believes that when people have more information, they make better decisions — and the numbers show just how many consumers rely on the platform.
“More people Google ‘Zillow’ than Google ‘real estate,’ which is wild,” Pendleton said. “We’ve got more than 220 million unique monthly users who are on Zillow every single month.”
One of Zillow’s newest tools is its “natural language search,” which lets users type the way they speak.
In the D.C. area, some of the most common search terms used last year include “luxury,” “modern lofts,” and “penthouses.” On the opposite end of the spectrum, D.C. users were also very interested in “cabins,” “lakes,” and “fireplaces.”
“I think people come to Zillow to dream, but also to shop too,” Pendleton said. “Maybe in your regular life, you’re looking for a loft [or] a condo, but in your Zillow surfing life, you’re looking for that cabin by the lake.”
National trends show search behavior has shifted since the pandemic. Instead of prioritizing large square footage, buyers are now looking for homes that support their lifestyles — walkable neighborhoods, access to transit and flexible layouts that fit evolving family needs.
Affordability is driving what people want right now. Small comforts like a cozy reading nook are often more important than big-ticket amenities like a pool.
Looking ahead, Zillow aims to become a true one‑stop shop for real estate — a place where users can buy, rent, sell and finance a home in one seamless experience. Pendleton said the goal is to make the entire process easier to navigate from start to finish.
“Zillow is continuing to evolve to make the whole home buying and selling process a lot more transparent, less stressful and more joyful,” she said. “You love being able to search and look at all your options, but the hard part comes when you want to take that next step. So we’re working really hard to build products and technology, and to partner with experts, to make that next step as joyful as that first step.”
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