Seattle-based real estate tech company Zillow Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ZG) is subleasing seven of its 12 floors at Russell Investments Center.
The sublease was first spotted in a fourth quarter report from the British real estate services company Savills, which said Zillow was looking to sublease more than 111,000 square feet in the downtown tower. Zillow, which now allows employees to work remotely, still occupies about 100,000 square feet in the downtown Seattle tower, and the seven floors came on the market this past fall.
"Over the last few years, we’ve begun to redesign existing floors and sublease select floors across some of our locations," a Zillow spokesperson said in a statement to the Business Journal. "We are investing in new space designed purposefully for collaboration and social gatherings. We've opened renovated floors across several of our existing offices nationally, including Seattle. These refreshed spaces are designed for in-person collaboration.”
Zillow has also drastically reduced its headcount over the past year. In a regulatory filing from November, the company said it had 5,830 full-time employees at the end of September, down from 8,005 at the end of 2021. In November 2021, Zillow announced it was shuttering its home-flipping business, Zillow Offers, in a move that would take several quarters and result in cutting its headcount by about 25%. In October 2022, Zillow laid off an additional 300 workers.
Zillow, launched in 2006, offers a home and rental search tool. The company also offers mortgages and a platform for partner agents called Premier Agent. Zillow generated $483 million in revenue during the third quarter, down 12% from the third quarter of 2021. The company said it had 236 million average monthly unique users during the third quarter.
The Savills report noted available sublease space grew by 1.3 million square feet over the course of last year, ending 2022 at 6.8 million square feet. Leasing activity was 1 million square feet during the fourth quarter, down from 1.9 million square feet during the third quarter and 1.6 million square feet during the fourth quarter of 2021.
