Forensic Analysis · Professional & Commercial Services · as of Aug 11, 2026

Zillow Group, Inc. (ZG)

A forensic read on Zillow Group, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.

D · Weak — demands caution

Forensic grade

Safe

Financial health

10.5

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

125.9

P / E (ttm)

0.5%

ROE

$7.6B

Market cap

15.5%

Revenue growth

This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.

Zillow Group, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 10.5, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.

What the filings flag

-0.7%

FY2025

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is -0.7% in the latest fiscal year and steady — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.

+1.6%/yr

FY2022–FY2025

Share-count dilution. Diluted share count changed +5% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+1.6%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~1.6% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2022 has been diluted ~5%.

285% of FCF

FY2025

Shareholder returns. Returned $670M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 285% of free cash flow. More than free cash flow generated — and beyond operating cash too, so the extra is coming from debt or cash reserves, which isn't sustainable indefinitely. Counting the $390M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 451%.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$2.58B

Revenue Growth YoY+15.5%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)+9.7%

Net Margin0.9%

Free Cash Flow$235.0M

Return on Equity0.5%

Debt / Equity0.12x

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.