[pille]

Maybe because used cars cost/risk about 1% as much as houses?

[gruez]

Why? because the unit price is lower? Can't zillow just... buy less houses? I don't see anything different between zillow buying a $500k house and one hundred used cars worth $5000 each.

[djbusby]

Easier to sell 50 cars than 1/2 of a house tho.

[gruez]

While I don't doubt this effect exists, I seriously doubt it's a significant factor when you're dealing with 7000 houses.

7000 figure from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29081118

[bena]

Also, every car has scrap value. Houses don't have that.

[gruez]

The equivalent for houses is the land they sit on. In metros that could easily be worth more than the house, and in most cases it's worth more (in % terms) than the scrap value of a car.