Seattle-based real estate tech company Zillow Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ZG) has laid off roughly 300 workers, the company confirmed to the Business Journal Wednesday.
The move comes after Zillow announced in November 2021 it was shuttering its direct homebuying service, Zillow Offers, which was to result in a reduction of roughly 25% of its workforce over several quarters. By the end of the first half of 2022, the company's full-time headcount had dropped even further — about 28% — from 8,005 to 5,791, the company disclosed in an August regulatory filing.
"As part of our normal business process, we continuously evaluate and responsibly manage our resources as we create digital solutions to make it easier for people to move," a Zillow spokesperson wrote in an email to the Business Journal. "This week, we’ve made the difficult — but necessary — decision to eliminate a small number of roles and will shift those resources to key growth areas around our housing super app. We’re still hiring in key technology-related roles across the company."
Affected roles included former Zillow Offers advisers, back-end staff for the company's mortgage operation and closing services, and sales roles for Premier Agent, Zillow's platform for partner agents.
Zillow, launched in 2006, helps consumers buy, rent or sell homes. It's also known for its Zestimate, a widely used home value estimate tool. The company had 234 million average monthly unique users during the second quarter of 2022 and 2.9 billion visits.
Zillow will report its third quarter earnings on Nov. 2. The company generated $1 billion in revenue the previous quarter, down from $1.3 billion during Q2 2021.
In the company's second quarter report, released in August, Zillow co-founder and CEO Rich Barton stressed the company's vision of a "housing super app" where consumers have all their real estate services in a single place.
"Each pillar in our product road map: financing, touring, seller solutions, enhancing our partner network and integrating our services is important to building the ecosystem we envision and sets us up to reach our goals of increasing engagement, increasing transactions and increasing revenue per transaction," Barton said on the earnings call.
Residential real estate companies are facing headwinds with rising interest rates and decreased competition among homebuyers. Seattle-based real estate tech company Redfin, for example, laid off about 470 employees in June. Flyhomes, another Seattle-based real estate tech company, laid off about 20% of its staff in July.
