DENVER (KDVR) — Real estate franchisor Re/Max announced it’s laying off 17% of its workforce this year as it invests in a partnership that brings a new artificial intelligence platform.
The impacted positions will be “primarily in technology,” the company announced Thursday. That amount to 120 employees.
The company is based here in Colorado but hasn’t said how many of the layoffs are of workers here.
Re/Max said it’s investing in a new partnership with Inside Real Estate and its technology platform kvCORE. The cloud-based platform includes customer relationship management that’s powered by artificial intelligence, according to the company.
“Agents remain at the center of the real estate transaction and the best agents are enabled by powerful technology,” Nick Bailey, the Re/Max president and CEO, stated in a release.
“Technology has been and will continue to be foundational to our one-of-a-kind value proposition, which helps drive our industry-leading productivity. But technology is not a destination; it’s a journey,” Bailey said. “We are always striving to bolster our offerings and help our brokers, agents and teams reach their full potential.”
The company said those impacted by the layoffs have been notified and said there are plans to hire more people for its lending arm.
It also pointed to its agent count, which has grown 2.7% since June of 2021 to nearly 144,000.
Still, the layoffs could point to another sign that the real estate market is slowing down.
Redfin, Compass and Zillow have all made significant layoffs recently, saying one reason is that sales and mortgage applications have quickly slowed down.
That’s in part because of rapidly rising interest rates and the fact that people have less money because of inflation and high gas prices.