Key Details:
- In an SEC filing, Anywhere Real Estate announced a round of layoffs that took place on January 9, 2023.
- The most recent cuts bring Anywhere’s workforce reduction to 11% since June 2022.
- Anywhere also announced the end of RealSure, joining Zillow and Redfin by shutting down its iBuyer.
Anywhere Real Estate, Inc. joined the growing list of companies making cuts in 2023.
According to Anywhere’s SEC filing, the company “executed meaningful workforce reduction” on January 9, 2023. This brings Anywhere’s total percentage of reductions to 11% since June 2022.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Anywhere’s layoffs coincide with the end of its iBuyer, RealSure.
End of Another iBuyer
Anywhere is not the first to shut down its iBuyer. In 2021, Zillow announced the end of its iBuying model, Zillow Offers.
The following year, Zillow announced a partnership with Opendoor as a way to provide Zillow customers with instant cash offers. But Opendoor—the largest iBuyer in the industry— is facing its own challenges. The company reported close to $1 billion in losses in the third quarter of 2022, and the co-founder Eric Wu stepped down as CEO in December.
Redfin also shut down its iBuyer, RedfinNow, in November 2022.
Of the iBuyers still active, Opendoor scaled back its homebuying by 45% in Q3 2022 compared to a year earlier, while Offerpad cut its buying back by 33%. Both companies are shifting their models this year.
Never a Disruption
When iBuyers first came on the scene, many believed it would disrupt the real estate industry for good. But, according to data from the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), only 1% of sellers sold their homes through an iBuyer in the past year.
And the iBuyers that are left are cutting prices in order to get rid of inventory. Parcl Labs, a company that tracks iBuyer activity, found that iBuyers are reducing prices by more than 2% every two weeks.
So, the question is, will more iBuyers shut down, or will they find a way to last through today’s uncertain market?
Kurt Carlton, president and co-founder of New Western, shared his thoughts in a recent article:
The purest iBuyers are essentially pivoting to become more like listing agents. Showing just how challenging it is to disrupt the current industry standard.
