<story><title>Zillow, Prophet, time series, and prices</title><url>https://ryxcommar.com/2021/11/06/zillow-prophet-time-series-and-prices/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rossdavidh</author><text>While there are some decent points in this post, it ignores another possibility for why Zillow Offers got shut down.&lt;p&gt;The first explanation, when it was just being paused, was that there was a shortage of labor and materials to do the renovating.  Probably true, but not the real reason.  It is entirely possible that the second explanation, that it was too hard to model accurately the price 6 months out, is also true but not the real reason.&lt;p&gt;The real reason might be something the Zillow CEO doesn&amp;#x27;t want to say out loud.  Like, we are near a top in house prices, and it looks like it might fall a lot, or for a long time, or both, before we get back to reasonable house prices that have a chance of going up again.  Zillow does not want to say &amp;quot;real estate is about to bust, as an investment strategy&amp;quot;, because they are still tied to the real estate market.  But, flawed as their analysis might have been, they might have been able to see enough to know that no matter how good their algorithm could be made, they&amp;#x27;re not going to be able to buy low and sell high if the prices keep falling.&lt;p&gt;Now, maybe Zillow is wrong again, and housing is not in for a rough ride in the very near future.  But maybe they&amp;#x27;re not wrong, and shutting down Zillow Offers (rather than fixing it) will look like a quite prudent move in a year&amp;#x27;s time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>modriano</author><text>Median housing prices have been consistently rising [0] since Zillow started their property buying program in 2018. In their most recent earnings report, Zillow announced $422M in Q3 losses from their home buying program and expects $240M to $265M in losses for homes they plan to buy in Q4 [1]. Rising sale prices coupled with big losses implies Zillow has been systematically paying above-market rates for homes, and there&amp;#x27;s a lot of evidence corroborating that hypothesis [2]. Maybe we&amp;#x27;re near a peak in home prices, but prices haven&amp;#x27;t started falling yet, and if Zillow was paying market rates, they wouldn&amp;#x27;t be losing money yet.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;series&amp;#x2F;MSPUS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;series&amp;#x2F;MSPUS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;investors.zillowgroup.com&amp;#x2F;investors&amp;#x2F;news-and-events&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;news-details&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;Zillow-Group-Reports-Third-Quarter-2021-Financial-Results--Shares-Plan-to-Wind-Down-Zillow-Offers-Operations&amp;#x2F;default.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;investors.zillowgroup.com&amp;#x2F;investors&amp;#x2F;news-and-events&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fortune.com&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;zillow-house-flipping-overpaid-offers-unit-bank-of-ameria&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fortune.com&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;zillow-house-flipping-overpai...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Zillow, Prophet, time series, and prices</title><url>https://ryxcommar.com/2021/11/06/zillow-prophet-time-series-and-prices/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rossdavidh</author><text>While there are some decent points in this post, it ignores another possibility for why Zillow Offers got shut down.&lt;p&gt;The first explanation, when it was just being paused, was that there was a shortage of labor and materials to do the renovating.  Probably true, but not the real reason.  It is entirely possible that the second explanation, that it was too hard to model accurately the price 6 months out, is also true but not the real reason.&lt;p&gt;The real reason might be something the Zillow CEO doesn&amp;#x27;t want to say out loud.  Like, we are near a top in house prices, and it looks like it might fall a lot, or for a long time, or both, before we get back to reasonable house prices that have a chance of going up again.  Zillow does not want to say &amp;quot;real estate is about to bust, as an investment strategy&amp;quot;, because they are still tied to the real estate market.  But, flawed as their analysis might have been, they might have been able to see enough to know that no matter how good their algorithm could be made, they&amp;#x27;re not going to be able to buy low and sell high if the prices keep falling.&lt;p&gt;Now, maybe Zillow is wrong again, and housing is not in for a rough ride in the very near future.  But maybe they&amp;#x27;re not wrong, and shutting down Zillow Offers (rather than fixing it) will look like a quite prudent move in a year&amp;#x27;s time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jrochkind1</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think they lost $420 million on it because they knew what they were doing and were good at forecasting home prices and know things others don&amp;#x27;t about them.   I mean, it&amp;#x27;s an interesting story you tell, but doesn&amp;#x27;t seem like the most obvious explanation to fit the data -- which would be, actually, they were bad at forecasting home prices, is why they lost $420 million trying to predict home prices.</text></comment>