Zillow has laid off 500 employees—about 7% of the portal’s 7,000 employees—in order to ensure a “disciplined cost structure” across the portal, according to an announcement by CEO Jeremy Wacksman Aug. 4.

In a blog post attributed to Wacksman, ahead of Wednesday’s Q2 2026 earnings release and investor call, the Zillow CEO described these “organizational changes” as “difficult decisions that reflect both the strides we’re making in our strategy and the reality of what is required of us to grow at scale.” 

A Zillow spokesperson referred to the blog post, but did not respond to specific RISMedia inquiries related to the layoffs.

Wacksman said in the post that Zillow has been seeing strong growth and “outperform(ing) the category, despite a housing market that has been essentially flat.” However, he said with that growth Zillow “must ensure we are organized to continue winning into the future.”

Zillow’s stock is down 45% this year, with many other public real estate companies seeing their market caps shrink as the housing market remains largely stagnant.

Wacksman continued that in order to support the portal’s goals, it has eliminated these 500 positions. 
“These changes are about ensuring we have a disciplined cost structure and getting more efficient, with the right people in the right positions,” he said.

This is the portal’s second round of layoffs this year, originally laying off 200 employees back in January. These layoffs were attributed to underperformance, according to media reports. However, following these original layoffs, 200 positions were listed open at the portal.

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