Opendoor slashes workforce

SoftBank-backed Opendoor has laid off 600 of its employees, which constitutes 35% of its workforce, TechCrunch reported. The company has raised $1.3 billion, and was most recently valued at $3.8 billion. 

• iBuying has ground to a halt: Opendoor, Offerpad, Zillow Offers, and Redfin Now have all ceased making offers on houses. The companies have all cited the difficulty of accurately pricing properties at this time.

• Major concern as firms are stuck between buy and flip: These flippers have large inventories of unsold houses, and their values have certainly dropped.

• Be Smart: New home listings were down about 27% from a year ago in the first week of April. That is far from typical for late March and early April. By comparison, new listings increased by an average of about 50% between March 1 and April 5 in 2018 and 2019. Overall, the total inventory of homes on the market across the country has increased by 2.5% since March 1, as properties sit on the market for longer, WSJ noted.