Redfin is set to shutter its home-flipping business and reduce its workforce by 13%, laying off 862 employees.
About 264 of the job cuts are directly related to the shutdown of Redfin Now, the company’s i-buying business, in which it purchases a home as-is, completes minor improvements and resells the home on the open market.
“Winding down RedfinNow is a strategic decision we made in order to focus our resources on our core businesses in the face of the rising cost of capital,” the company wrote in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The remaining workforce cuts are primarily among real estate services and employees at the company’s headquarters. The cuts will reduce the company’s number of lead agents by 9%, or approximately 197.
In addition, Redfin said, approximately 218 employees will have their current role eliminated, but are being offered a new role within the company.
Online real estate brokerage Redfin lays off hundreds as housing market slows
As the housing market cools and the economic picture becomes more uncertain, real estate firms like Redfin have been downsizing.
In June, Redfin laid off 8% of its workforce due to the slowing housing market. Through layoffs and attrition, the company said it has now reduced its total number of employees by 27% since April.
Redfin is not the only large real estate firm to make cuts. Last week Opendoor, the leader in the i-buying market, cut 550 people across all functions, about 18% of the company.
“A layoff is awful but we can’t avoid it. We plan to keep increasing our share of the market, but that market in 2023 is likely to be 30% smaller than it was in 2021,” Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman wrote in an email to employees Wednesday. “The June layoff was a response to our expectation that we’d sell fewer houses in 2022; this layoff assumes the downturn will last at least through 2023.”
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
