More Redundancies at Redfin as 4% of Employees Cut

The U.S. brokerage and portal operator Redfin has announced its third redundancy round in the last 12 months.

Citing the "economic uncertainty" around the housing market, the Seattle-based company has let go 201 staff members, equivalent to 4% of its total employee numbers. The layoffs come hot on the heels of major headcount reductions in November 2022, when the company lost 862 employees as it shuttered its iBuying business, and in June 2022 when it got rid of around 470 staff.

In addition to running a brokerage business, which the company estimated to have facilitated 0.8% of national home transactions in 2022, Redfin is also one of the most popular portal sites in the country and the operator of the popular Rent. rental verticals.

While the portal business has made strides in terms of traffic seeing an average of 44 million monthly users in 2022 (a gain of 5% on the previous year) the company's main brokerage business has suffered.

Many brokerage companies in the U.S. are facing similar tough decisions as the impact of spiralling mortgage costs has brought an inflated market back to earth over recent months. Redfin's Net losses for 2022 amounted to $321 million, nearly triple what they were in 2021.

Like many large real estate companies, Redfin has bet big on attaching mortgages to its services paying $135 million for Bay Equity Home Loans in January 2022. Despite growing volumes, and also like many companies going into mortgages, Redfin's mortgage business remains unprofitable.