Approximately 18-months ago, we published a report entitled: “Is Zillow’s ARPA Growth Miracle Over? The Demise of the “MSA” in the Mortgage Channel Suggests It Could Be, Reducing Estimates”. In...
READ MORE >In many ways the investment case for or against Zillow increasingly can be distilled to one single question: Does the company’s current cost structure reflect investments for growth or simply...
READ MORE >Zillow management did it again. The company guided down for the forward quarter and “talked down” margin expectations for the out year. This has become a tried and true practice for...
READ MORE >Believe it or not, there was a time even after we adopted a bearish stance on Zillow’s stock that we were allowed to ask questions on the company’s earnings conference calls. Unfortunately we asked too many difficult...
READ MORE >Over the past month, we surveyd approximately 470 real estate agents. The vast majority of the agents we surveyed have at least 10-years experience, generate at least 15 transaction sides annually, and work for one of the REAL Trends 500 brokerage firms. Additionally, a significant...
READ MORE >“EBITDA isn’t a controlled substance or a law enforcement agency. It’s the standard abbreviation for the financial-analysis term “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and...
READ MORE >The structural flaws with Zillow’s operating model are all hiding in plain sight. It’s May 2016, nearly 5-years after Zillow went public and the company is no closer to achieving its theoretical adjusted EBITDA margin...
READ MORE >Things have been quite different in Internet TAM-land for the past 3-6 months. Seemingly overnight investors have held companies in the space to a higher standard of operating metrics, profitability and cash flow (do not confuse the relative “higher” with the absolute “high”). In a shock...
READ MORE >It’s one of the more laborious, mind-numbing, and tedious exercises we have conducted on any investment idea, but it has proven to be the most revealing. Of course, we’re talking about the task...
READ MORE >Over the past few weeks, we conducted a survey of more than 50 rental property managers across the country. Overall the feedback from our survey suggests that CSGP management's assertions about the company's...
READ MORE >Where were you on that fateful day, July 28, 2014 when Zillow announced its intention to acquire Trulia in a purchase that was valued at $3.5B at that time? It was a brutal time for short sellers as...
READ MORE >“By the minute I was getting paid like a hot line, Servin' rollin' fiends was calling, we was dot com, Well connected, well respected and well protected.”- Meek Mill/Wale....
READ MORE >Investors love anecdotes about companies; they represent the “broth” in the mosaic theory “soup” we create on any given investment idea. Industry statistics and company specific filings...
READ MORE >From our perspective, within the walls of Zillow Chad Cohen has been the fourth most important person in the company’s empire building efforts over the past decade behind Spencer Rascoff, Greg Schwartz, and Richard Barton. This is why we think...
READ MORE >“Beware the the “tions” of 2015, Especially Those Related to Project Upstream….”- PAA Research, 1/29/15“There’s something brewing here that really makes me think that...
READ MORE >Heading into the company’s 1Q15 earnings call we thought we might get the following from Zillow: Messy 1Q15 results - check New metrics that would be impossible to reconcile with historical...
READ MORE >For the past year, we have been arguing that Zillow has a major advertising inventory problem. The growth of the company’s premier agent featured listing program combined with deals Zillow has...
READ MORE >Well that was interesting. This is not our first rodeo in a heavily shorted battleground stock, but for some reason each experience often reveals something new about potential trading action. Today’s action certainly underscores a...
READ MORE >2015 is shaping up to be an incredibly challenging year for Zillow. The ground is shifting rapidly in the residential real estate space as legacy brokerage firms and media companies (think News...
READ MORE >This morning Trulia filed its 2014 10-K. As you might remember, on the conference call discussing Zillow’s 4Q14 earnings and the closing of the acquisition management was unwilling to provide much detail on Trulia’s 4Q14 financial...
READ MORE >As long time followers of PAA Research know, we have a fair amount of experience dealing with heavily shorted stocks. This is not our first rodeo with a stock that experiences a vicious rally that seems to have been...
READ MORE >We are closing out our TRLA short idea with a (-62.3%) loss following the company's acquisition by Zillow. Many, if not most elements of our short thesis on TRLA did indeed play out: in almost every way the...
READ MORE >“So hold on tight, with all your might… Cause MC's [market caps] crumble when we rumble… Cause in this battle, I’m takin no prisoners, I’m slayin MC's right on the...
READ MORE >“I’m wide awake. I’m wide awake. Wide awake. I’m not sleeping. Oh, no, no, no….. If I could, you know I would. If I could, I would. Let it go….” U2, “Bad”, The Unforgettable Fire In this wonderful song...
READ MORE >Approximately two months ago we published a report backed by a review of more than 2,000 listings in 50+ markets on Zillow (“Z: Look at the Listings, the Zillow Ecosystem Might Not Be What You...
READ MORE >Now it’s starting to make sense. Now we understand why Zillow agreed to pay $3.5B for a company which by almost every measure is 2nd or 3rd rate in the listings aggregation space. Now we are...
READ MORE >We recognize that there are rumors in the market that Zillow could be in talks to acquire Trulia. We will have more extensive comments shortly, but we wanted to provide you with some insight on what the agent community...
READ MORE >“You can observe a lot by watching”- Yogi BerraAs Zillow shares climb to levels we previously never thought possible (amazingly in the absence of any material new news) we have spent...
READ MORE >Was it good enough? Time and time again that was the question we were attempting to answer in our conversations with investors after Zillow reported 1Q14 results and provided initial 2Q14 guidance yesterday. The trading action after hours...
READ MORE >In the context of what has transpired in the broader Internet space over the past two weeks, Zillow shareholders have to be feeling pretty good about themselves, or at the very least quite fortunate. After all, the 8-10% sell-off in Z...
READ MORE >LONG
$70
SELL/SHORT
$4
SELL
$50
SELL/SHORT
$45
SHORT
$18
SELL/SHORT
$5
SELL/SHORT
$42
LONG
$75
SELL/SHORT
$50
SELL/SHORT
$50
LONG
$5.50
SHORT
$50
SHORT
$28
LONG
$65
LONG
$37
PAIR TRADE
$10
PAIR TRADE
$30
LONG
$35
SHORT
$35
SELL/SHORT
$10
SHORT
$101
SHORT
$15
SHORT
$0
SHORT
$9
SHORT
$0
PAIR - LONG BGG/SHORT TTC
25%
PAIR - LONG BGG/SHORT TTC
25%
SHORT
$14.00
SHORT
$22
SHORT
$15
SHORT
$20
SHORT
$31
SHORT
$35
SHORT
$30
PAIR - LONG KNL/SHORT MLHR
25%
SHORT
$100
LONG
$8
LONG
$20
SHORT
$22
PAIR - LONG CSGP/SHORT LOOP
40%
LONG
$35
SHORT
$275
SHORT
$0