They are making most of their $$$ from realtors...

Every time you see realtors' pictures shown on Zillow website, those are all paid advertisement,targeted certain area(like zip code).

This is nothing different than if you google some service/products, the ones come up at top are the ones who pay Google...

Money talks...whoever gets the most gold rule...when people get rich they wanna be politicians because they can impose policies which benefit their interest group...and they call themselves "elite".....