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Redfin will shed 450 employees within its rentals division as it moved this week to partner with portal powerhouse Zillow on its rental listings, the company said in a new filing that also included details of the partnership.
The layoffs follow cuts Redfin made at its headquarters last month, when it let go of 46 employees in management, field leadership and program roles.
The company made the announcement in a filing made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday evening, hours after it said it would syndicate Zillow’s multifamily rental listings to Redfin and its sites, Rent.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 said in the SEC filing. “We expect this restructuring will impact approximately 450 rentals employees.”
The company said that the majority of the costs associated with the restructuring would come by the end of the second quarter, and that it expected to spend $18 million to $21 million on the restructuring.
Meanwhile, Redfin unveiled that Zillow agreed to pay $100 million for the syndication rights of listings in multifamily buildings with more than 25 units on Redfin’s rental sites.
Zillow will also pay to receive leads generated through the syndication for up to nine years as part of the deal, Zillow said in its own SEC filing.
In 2024, Zillow grew from 37,000 to 50,000 multifamily properties on its platform. It believes it can grow that to 140,000 properties nationwide, the company told investors.
The shakeup comes as the real estate portals battle for the attention of people shopping for places to live.
Zillow’s rentals segment had 1.9 million active rental listings as of the end of 2024, the company told investors on Tuesday when unveiling its performance in the fourth quarter and all of last year.
The company’s rental audience has grown to 29 million average unique monthly visitors, per Comscore, putting it ahead of the closest multifamily competitor in terms of audience, according to Zillow’s public investor deck.
Rental listings aren’t organized the same way as homes for sale, so the portals are battling for dominance in the space and acting like de facto multiple listing services by compiling as many rental listings as possible in one place.
Zillow entered into a similar partnership with portal competitor Realtor.com last March. Details about how much Zillow paid aren’t readily available. News Corp, the company that owns Realtor.com parent Move, Inc., noted that the partnership helped the company offset other revenue declines related to real estate, SEC filings show.
Prospective tenants also add potential value to the portals, and Zillow agreed to pay Redfin for leads from the Redfin Rental Network for at least five years with the option to renew twice at two-year extensions.
