Saying it expects the mortgage market to continue to get tougher, tech-based mortgage lender Better has reportedly laid off one-quarter of its U.S. mortgage sales and origination team, with pink slips going out just two weeks after the company closed a SPAC merger that netted more than $500 million in funding, Inman reports.
Better declined to comment on the number of workers affected. Citing two anonymous employees, Business Insider reported that after the Sept. 6 layoffs, the company’s mortgage originations team employed 75 workers in the U.S., plus some additional employees based in India. Better confirmed that it told Insider that the team currently employs “over 100 people.”
Better.com’s SPAC deal was announced in May 2021. Aurora Acquisition shareholders approved the merger last month after both companies traversed a rocky road to deal completion.
When Better first announced plans to go public at a $7.7 billion valuation, it was a different time. Mortgage interest rates were lower, the housing market had not slowed so dramatically, and the company was coming off a year in which it claimed to have notched $500 million in profits.
But Better.com’s boom in business, fueled by existing homeowners refinancing their mortgages, turned into a bust and the company began laying off workers in November 2021. It would continue to let go of workers throughout 2022 as it began to bleed cash and suffer from a number of high-profile missteps and bad publicity. Read more.
