In a fresh round of job cuts, the online mortgage lender Better.com laid off its entire real estate team and reportedly shut down the unit. Vishal Garg, the Indian-origin CEO of Better.com has laid off more than 4,000 employees since December 2021 in the United States and India, according to a report by TECHLUSIVE. However, it is not clear how many employees are impacted by the fresh round of layoffs.
As per the reports, Better.com was planning to move to a partnership agent model from an in-house agent model.
Moreover, an impacted employee also claimed that they received “little to no severance, after getting a more than 50 percent salary cut in November in order to ‘ensure’ our jobs to come”.
In December 2021, Vishal Garg attracted criticism for laying off 900 employees over a Zoom call. In May 2022, the employees were given the option to quit voluntarily and subsequently, Better.com received around 920 resignations.
In the month of March this year, Amazon and Better.com entered into an agreement enabling Amazon employees to utilize their company shares as a means to contribute towards the initial payment required for a mortgage. Better.com introduced a program called ‘Equity Unlocker’, which permits Amazon employees to employ their vested equity as security, allowing them to make a down payment when purchasing a house.
“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,” Vishal Garg said.
The frequent layoffs at the Better.com are result of uncertain market conditions currently prevailing in the mortgage space creating a difficult operating environment.
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Updated: 10 Jun 2023, 06:20 PM IST