Online mortgage firm Better.com, which is run by Indian-origin Vishal Garg, has laid-off its entire real estate team and shut down the unit, as per reports. TechCrunch reported that the company was looking at moving from an in-house agent model to a partnership agent model.
There is no clarity yet as to how many employees in the real estate team had lost their jobs. One of the employees who was laid off from the company said that they got "little to no severance" and revealed that he had received a 50 per cent paycut in November 2022.
In May 2022, the company gave its employees in India the option to quit the firm voluntarily and close to 920 resignations were accepted later. In December 2021, Garg had laid off 900 employees over a Zoom call.
Overall, the number of employees who have been laid-off from Better.com by Garg in India and United States has crossed 4000. In March 2023, Amazon had inked a deal with the firm to permit employees to use their shares for a mortgage down payment.
Garg had said that Amazon employees can finance their residences without relinquishing their shares.
"Even though equity is a valuable asset, it is considered ineligible by most banks and financial institutions when calculating the necessary down payment on a home," he said.
As per Better.com, the uncertain mortgage market conditions led to an extremely challenging operating environment for several firms in the industry.
Also read: Better.com CEO Vishal Garg, who fired 900 employees over Zoom call, sued for 'misleading investors'
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