"The company doesn’t like to be called a home flipper, but that’s what the business boils down to. The company invites owners to seek an offer for their property, then uses its software to calculate a bid. If the owner accepts, Zillow buys the house, makes light repairs and puts it back on the market. The big idea is that selling a home is stressful, and that some consumers will pay Zillow to make the process less nerve-wracking.
Gotcher has a different take. In the hypothetical he lays out in the video, the company uses its cash to amass an inventory of 30 homes in a given neighborhood, all for one price: $300,000. Then the company buys an additional home for $340,000 in a bid to drive up the value of the first 30 homes."