Mortgage firm Better.com, which fired employees over Zoom call, undertakes fresh layoffs: Reports

The company founded by Indian-American entrepreneur Vishal Garg has laid off its entire real estate team, according to reports.

American online mortgage firm Better.com, which laid off 900 employees over a Zoom call in December 2021, has reportedly undertaken a fresh round of job cuts, terminating the entire real estate team, and has shut down the unit.

Vishal Garg is the founder and CEO of Better.com (Image courtesy: Better,com)

The layoffs were carried out as the company is looking to move from an ‘in-house agent’ model to a ‘partnership agent’ one.

‘Little to no severance paid’

According to reports, there is no clarity yet on the number of people who were working in the real estate division. An employee who got laid off in this round, however, revealed Better.com gave ‘little to no severance’ to those relieved, adding that he himself was subjected to a 50% pay cut in November last year.

Also, in May 2022, the organisation founded by Indian-American entrepreneur Vishal Garg (who is also the CEO) asked staffers to resign voluntarily, and close to 920 resignations were accepted later.

‘Thousands of’ employees laid off

Better.com has carried out multiple rounds of layoffs before the latest one, with the fourth round taking place in August 2022. Till now, around 4,000 people have been handed pink slips.

Better.com-Amazon deal

In March, the company entered into a deal with Amazon under which those working for the e-commerce giant were allowed to use their vested equity as a collateral for down payment to buy homes.

“Even though equity is a valuable asset, most banks consider it ineligible when calculating the necessary downpayment on a home,” Garg said at the time.