Better.com shut its Zillow-chasing real estate unit and its salaried agents

An online direct-to-consumer mortgage lender that expanded from refinancing toward a full home-finding and home-purchase experience.

That a digital lender could rival Zillow and Redfin by owning the whole home purchase with salaried in-house agents

Better renamed itself from Better Mortgage to signal it wanted to 'touch every part of home ownership', and made Better Real Estate — sources called it the company's 'baby' — the destination for a big chunk of 2022 investment, building consumer experiences, agent-facing tools and its first native mobile app on Zillow and Redfin's salaried-agent model.

Rising mortgage rates slowed the housing market hard; rumours that all of Better Real Estate could be scrapped were circulating by April 2022. Impacted agents told TechCrunch they had taken a more than 50% salary cut in November 'to ensure' their jobs, then were laid off on 7 June 2023 with 'little to no severance'.

Better exited the real estate business, shifting from an in-house agent model to a partnership agent model. The company declined to comment on the record, and the number of people impacted was not clear.

The salaried-agent model carried fixed costs that a rate-driven slump in transactions could not carry.

The unit consumed both capital and the company's name — 'Better' itself was rebranded for this bet.

Partnership agents deliver purchase referrals without payroll, preserving the mortgage funnel.

The exit preceded a SPAC closing that demanded a narrower, more defensible cost base.

Vertical-integration bets ride the market they integrate into: when rates turned, the first unit cut was the one that had cost the most identity — even the company's own name.

Better declined to comment on the record at the time. Two months later, in August 2023, it completed the long-delayed SPAC merger and began trading as Better Home and Finance, with shares falling more than 90% — a listing covered separately in this archive.