Z is pausing the purchase of U.S. homes as it works through a backlog of properties, Bloomberg News reported Sunday. The real estate platform acquired more than 3,800 homes in the second quarter, after expanding to the home- flipping business in 2018 through its Zillow Offers unit. Those company invites homeowners to request an offer on their house and uses its algorithms to come up with a price. If an owner accepts, it purchases the property, makes some repairs and puts it on the market. We are beyond our Zillow Purchasing business and are not taking additional contracts to purchase homes at this time, a spokesperson for Zillow told Bloomberg in an email. As quickly as possible, we work to process homes through the contracting real estate by sellers who are already under contract. The iBuying process, while powered by algorithms and pools of capital, also requires humans including inspectors, contractors and decorators. However, finding those workers has become challenging during the pandemic, which has seen labor shortages across the economy. Zillow shares were down 6% beforemarket and have plunged 26% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 SPX gained 19%.