[Reuzel]

Zillow lost money, because they were hit really hard during pandemic.

This article does not mention that. Instead, the rest of the article deals with Linkedin-wisdom and hard platitudes, such that it is not possible to build a good model on someone else's data (as if Zillow even was).

Data scientists remarking on the Zillow fold, are like psychiatrists or engineers remarking on non-clients and bridges build by others. They know nothing about the business, about the constraints, about how the estimates are consumed. They end up silly, but without good information coming from Zillow, we assign value to their analysis, purely on Twitter-soundbite-ability and internet-authority.

[starik36]

How exactly were they hit hard during pandemic? Their main income stream is the funnel of services they provide (or get a cut of) through lead generation (agents, title, insurance, etc...).

During the time of the pandemic, the house prices rose and so did the volume. If anything, they made out like a bandit.