Real-estate company Zillow Group Inc. said yesterday that it will stop buying and flipping new houses for the remainder of this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. The online home-listing platform, which got into the business of buying, refurbishing and quickly selling homes more than three years ago, said it would instead focus on closing existing purchase contracts and selling the homes it has on hand. Zillow said that it has stopped the practice because it was experiencing backlogs related to renovating the homes and that it faces constraints for on-the-ground workers. “We’re operating within a labor- and supply-constrained economy inside a competitive real estate market, especially in the construction, renovation and closing spaces,” Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Wacksman said. “We have not been exempt from these market and capacity issues.”
