Housing To Lay Off 600 Employees In The Next 3 Months

Rahul Yadav isn’t the only one getting fired from housing.com.  Looks like with him, Yadav has set off a chain of upheavals in the company the 26 yr old co-founded.

In a move that comes across as drastic, Housing.com, the Mumbai based reality portal recently in news for its former CEO’s antics and a mega marketing campaign is about to lose 600 employees. The 3 year old startup currently has a 2600 employees on its rolls. A large number considering that realty rivals like Commonfloor and MagicBricks only have 800 and 850 employees respectively.

“Housing is being completely restructured and performance for each employee across departments is being (scrutinised),” a top executive in the company tipped off Economic Times.

“While some people have been asked to leave because businesses are being shut down, others because of underperformance and in some cases due to overstaffing,” , he added.

A management representative at Housing said the company was laying off 160 employees in noncore businesses that it plans to shut. 

Apparently, the realty portal wants to focus on building a revenue-generating model, and also add on an advertising business on its website, currently ranked 274 (alexa) in India. A move that could fetch returns, given its popularity. Similar housing portals like Grabhouse have already got into the advertising space.

“It has shut its commercial properties, short stays and land businesses and streamlined focus on large cities and towns while ceasing operations in smaller cities.”, the informer added.

Whether signs of a bubble beginning to show signs of bursting, or a smart move by a startup to go lean and justify its 1500 crore valuation, only time will tell.
For now, looks like Housing can’t stay off the news for too long.