Zillow to shut down Zillow Offers, lay off 25% of company

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Seattle-based Zillow Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: ZG) is shutting down Zillow Offers, its direct homebuying service.

The move, announced Tuesday along with the company's third quarter 2021 earnings results, comes just weeks after Zillow said it wasn't buying any more homes through the end of the year. According to Zillow, shutting down its iBuying service will take several quarters.

"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," Zillow Group co-founder and CEO Rich Barton said in a news release. "While we built and learned a tremendous amount operating Zillow Offers, it served only a small portion of our customers. Our core business and brand are strong, and we remain committed to creating an integrated and digital real estate transaction that solves the pain points of buyers and sellers while serving a wider audience."

Zillow also said it will lay off about 25% of its workforce as a result of shutting down Zillow Offers.

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2021/11/02/zillow-shutting-down-zillow-offfers.html

[Shermann]

1. So they are going back to online advertising?

I wonder how they determined that future home prices are unpredictable. It's not like they crashed, it's still up up up!

[renate]

2. if they thought home prices were going to go up, wouldn't they keep buying more houses?

For them to just end the program (and fire that many people ) instead of just slowing down sounds to me, a person completely uneducated in economics, like they think prices aren't going to keep going up, at least not enough to make the risk worth it to them.

I hope this is good news for people wanting to enter the housing market but who have been priced out so far.