Zillow
online real estate database
Zillow, officially known as Zillow Group, Inc., is an American tech real-estate marketplace company that was founded in 2006 by co-executive chairmen Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft executives and founders of Microsoft spin-off Expedia; Spencer Rascoff, a co-founder of Hotwire.com; David Beitel, Zillow's current chief technology officer; and Kristin Acker, Zillow's current technology leadership advisor.
History
Early history
Rich Barton conceived of Zillow while at Microsoft, where he founded Expedia.com. Barton believed that a consumer-facing site could transform the real estate industry in the same way that Expedia had the travel industry. Barton told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "the web [had] been around for now 9 years or 10 years, but still I couldn't get pictures of homes and complete listings and prices and addresses." "We were trying to answer a simple question. What is that house worth? What should we offer if we wanted to buy it?"
In December 2004, Zillow was incorporated in Washington. Barton and co-founder Lloyd Frink, a former Expedia executive, self-funded the company, which operated out of a downtown Seattle office with 20 employees.
Zillow's website was launched on February 8, 2006, and included a home-valuation tool that anyone could use. Other features at the time included information about home sale history and charts and graphs comparing home value appreciation with other towns or states. The site crashed on the morning it launched because its servers were unable to handle the volume of traffic.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Zillow” as online real estate database. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as online real estate database. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8071921. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006 and 2004.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Zillow”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Zillow primary sources, Zillow archive and Zillow research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Zillow”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Zillow” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.