Progress toward making housing more equitable and inclusive

Our mission is to give people the power to unlock life’s next chapter by building technology and offering resources that make it easier for customers to get the home they want.

Zillow is a household name, and we take the power of our brand seriously — especially when it comes to making housing more equitable and inclusive. We can achieve that by leveraging our position and tools to help expand access to affordable rentals, create pathways to generational wealth through homeownership and build a diverse industry that works for all, especially underserved communities.

We do not shy away from these challenges. Our company was built to fundamentally change how real estate works by “turning on the lights” to help consumers navigate and overcome barriers to housing. We have an opportunity to use our resources for good, deploying our people, advocacy, products and partnerships to build a marketplace that empowers people, operates fairly and minimizes impacts on the natural world.

Our investments in environmental, social and governance (ESG) are critical to this vision. In 2022, we moved our Corporate Social Responsibility team into the Corporate Development and Strategy organization to better align ESG across the company. Our ESG efforts are now focused in five distinct areas: social impact and innovation, equity and belonging, employees and culture, environmental sustainability, and responsible business practices.

We are already seeing progress on these important investments.

Our down payment assistance feature, which provides home shoppers with critical resources that can help them afford a down payment, has been used by more than 1 million shoppers in just one year. We’ve launched a first-of-its-kind feature for military veterans to find condos eligible for Department of Veterans Affairs loans. And our partnership with Housing Connector — which helps place people experiencing homelessness in affordable housing — has assisted thousands of people, the majority of whom are people of color, secure a home in just a few short years.

We are going beyond product innovations to help consumers. We are proud to support policies that help renters build credit; encourage on-time rental payment history to be included in mortgage loan underwriting; protect renters from discrimination; make it easier to build new homes to add critically needed supply to the market; and create more affordable housing. And we will continue to publish industry-leading economic research to create more transparency in real estate for advocates, policymakers and consumers.

These are strong steps, but we cannot meet the needs of our customers and drive progress without building a more inclusive workforce. In 2022, we made progress toward our equity and belonging commitments, including an increase in representation of women across all leadership levels, and an increase in Asian and Black representation in management positions.

Our Cloud HQ model of work — which has given the majority of our people the option to work where they are happiest — has been a game changer. Not only has it done away with forcing most potential employees to weigh relocation and cost-of-living considerations, it’s allowed us to recruit the best and brightest talent, regardless of where they live. Employees now have the flexibility to work from where they are most productive, and make choices that work best for their families and personal responsibilities. And to level the playing field even further, we pay our people based on their experience, not by where they happen to live.

By the end of 2022, Zillow employees were working from 49 states, and 73% of our people were categorized as working remotely. But we recognize that people are social creatures. With our employees spread across the country — and time zones — we are intentional about building smart working norms that connect people in our Cloud HQ. We hold core collaboration hours across all time zones to ensure employees have time to engage with one another. And for times we want to be together, we convene retreats at our renovated office spaces. We’ve leveraged digital technologies to foster relationships within teams and across the company, whether those employees are working in person for shorter stints or connecting for a virtual coffee chat with fellow members of one of our nine Affinity Networks.

These investments work for our people. Employee surveys reveal high levels of satisfaction and work-life balance — it’s one of the many reasons Zillow consistently lands on lists as one of the best places to work.

In addition to supporting employees, our Cloud HQ model is also reducing our environmental impacts through a smaller office footprint. After establishing a goal in 2021 to achieve net zero operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, we took steps in 2022 to increase our transparency and accountability by obtaining an independent, third-party auditor to review our emissions. We also developed a road map to guide our efforts to manage supply chain emissions going forward.

This past year was transformative, particularly for the housing market, and that has affected our business, as well as the lives of our customers, partner agents and communities across the country. Clearly, there is more to be done — and that energizes me and my Zillow colleagues. We will continue to double down on our efforts to reimagine real estate and use our business, products, technology and people to help build a better world.