Zillow Group Inc. informed the state of Texas earlier this month that it will lay off a total of 55 workers at its facility in Coppell, Texas, as it winds down its Zillow Offers ibuying business.
In a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice filed with the Texas Workforce Commission on June 17, Michelle Hamm, manager of people operations for Zillow Group, states that the layoffs began with 32 job cuts on Jan. 3, 2022, and will be conducted in steps through Aug. 19, when the last employee will be let go.
Other cuts were made on Jan. 17 (1), March 21 (13), April 18 (3), May 20 (3), and May 28 (2), according to the notice.
“On behalf of Zillow Inc. and Zillow Homes Inc., which are wholly owned subsidiaries of Zillow Group Inc., I am writing to provide you with supplemental notice that the company expects to permanently eliminate certain additional employee positions …” the notice states.
It continues, “This action is due to the elimination of the Zillow Offers business. Appropriate advance notice of the job eliminations has been or will be provided to impacted employees.”
It adds that “impacted employees do not have bumping rights and do not have union representation.”
Zillow Group announced in November 2021 that it would exit the ibuying business. At the time, the company said it would lay off 25% of its staff as it eliminated its Zillow Offers business.
"We've determined the unpredictability in forecasting home prices far exceeds what we anticipated and continuing to scale Zillow Offers would result in too much earnings and balance-sheet volatility," co-founder and CEO Rich Barton said at the time. "While we built and learned a tremendous amount operating Zillow Offers, it served only a small portion of our customers.”
When it released its first-quarter earnings report in May 2022, the Seattle-based online real estate marketplace said it had just 100 homes not currently under contract to sell remaining on its books, after selling nearly 9,000 homes in the first quarter of 2022. That rapid selloff of Zillow Offers’ inventory helped the company post $4.3 billion in revenue in the quarter, up 20% from $1.29 billion a year earlier.
