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You’re talking about one owner and one house. Zillow was attempting to do it at an industrial scale.

There is already a gigantic industry of people who buy houses, fix them up, and sell them. Doesn't seem very evil.

Zillow wasn’t fixing them up, though. They were putting minimal-effort, superficial changes with zero care or actual investment, and then resisting for a higher price.

They were scalping housing.

People who flip houses don't put in more money than they need to, that's a tautology. It still adds value to the market.

"Scalping" makes zero sense in this context. Scalping exploits ticket mispricing and asymmetrical access to the market (waiting in line). Houses are bought at auction; you can't "scalp" at an auction. Try it at Christie's sometime.

To further your auction analogy, Zillow was doing the equivalent of offering Buy it Now prices above asking and owners were selling immediately. They had asymmetrical access to the market because they had asymmetrical capital.

They were literally scalping properties. And, like a scalper who has too much inventory, they’re now selling at a loss.

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