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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 special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger that netted more than $500 million in funding.
“As a publicly listed company, we’re focused on making prudent and disciplined decisions that account for market dynamics so that we can continue to serve both customers and shareholders for the long-term,” a spokesperson for Better said in a statement provided to Inman. “New projections and remarks from chair Jay Powell signal no near-term relief from elevated borrowing costs, so the mortgage market will continue to get tougher.”
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.”
According to records maintained by the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System, Better Mortgage Corp. sponsors 83 mortgage loan originators working out of nine active branch locations.
In the leadup to its Aug. 24 SPAC merger, Better revealed that it had reduced its global headcount by 91 percent in the past 18 months, from a peak of 10,400 workers in the fourth quarter of 2021 to a total of 950 team members as of June 8. Of those, about 410 were located in the United States, 420 in India and 120…