On the identical day Redfin introduced a brand new partnership to syndicate Zillow rental listings in multifamily buildings, the corporate stated it could eradicate the positions of roughly 450 staff.
Flip up the quantity in your actual property success at Inman On Tour: Nashville! Join with trade trailblazers and top-tier audio system to realize insights, cutting-edge methods, and invaluable connections. Elevate your corporation and obtain your boldest targets — all with Music Metropolis magic. Register now.
Redfin will shed 450 staff inside its leases division because it moved this week to associate with portal powerhouse Zillow on its rental listings, the corporate stated in a brand new submitting that additionally included particulars of the partnership.
The layoffs comply with cuts Redfin made at its headquarters final month, when it let go of 46 staff in administration, discipline management and program roles.
The corporate made the announcement in a submitting made with the U.S. Securities and Change Fee Tuesday night, hours after it stated it could syndicate Zillow’s multifamily rental listings to Redfin and its websites, Lease.com and ApartmentGuide.com.
“This restructuring primarily consists of eliminating certain employee roles within, or that support, our rentals segment between February and July, 2025,” Redfin stated within the SEC submitting. “We expect this restructuring will impact approximately 450 rentals employees.”
The corporate stated that almost all of the prices related to the restructuring would come by the top of the second quarter, and that it anticipated to spend $18 million to $21 million on the restructuring.
In the meantime, Redfin unveiled that Zillow agreed to pay $100 million for the syndication rights of listings in multifamily buildings with greater than 25 models on Redfin’s rental websites.
Zillow will even pay to obtain leads generated by way of the syndication for as much as 9 years as a part of the deal, Zillow stated in its personal SEC submitting.
In 2024, Zillow grew from 37,000 to 50,000 multifamily properties on its platform. It believes it could possibly develop that to 140,000 properties nationwide, the corporate informed buyers.
The shakeup comes as the true property portals battle for the eye of individuals searching for locations to dwell.
Zillow’s leases phase had 1.9 million energetic rental listings as of the top of 2024, the corporate informed buyers on Tuesday when unveiling its efficiency within the fourth quarter and all of final yr.
The corporate’s rental viewers has grown to 29 million common distinctive month-to-month guests. That’s forward of the closest multifamily competitor, CoStar.
Rental listings aren’t organized the identical approach as properties on the market, so the portals are battling for dominance within the area and appearing like de facto a number of itemizing companies by compiling as many rental listings as doable in a single place.
Zillow entered into the same partnership with portal competitor Realtor.com final March. Particulars about how a lot Zillow paid aren’t available. Information Corp, the corporate that owns Realtor.com mother or father Transfer, Inc., famous that the partnership helped the corporate offset different income declines associated to actual property, SEC filings present.
Potential tenants additionally add potential worth to the portals, and Zillow agreed to pay Redfin for leads from the Redfin Rental Community for no less than 5 years with the choice to resume twice at two-year extensions.