Flipping hard: Redfin's home-buying business is shutting down

Flipping hard: Redfin's home-buying business is shutting down

11/10/22 7:00PM

Real-estate brokerage Redfin announced on Wednesday that they would be sunsetting their home-flipping business, RedfinNow, and joining the long list of companies with layoffs, cutting 13% of their workforce.

‍Flipping hard

‍If you binge-watched home-renovation TV shows during the pandemic, you might have been tempted to get into home-flipping. The idea, of course, is simple enough: buy, renovate and then sell — hopefully for more than you paid.

‍Redfin launched their home-flipping venture in 2017, buying and selling thousands of homes over the last few years, competing with the likes of Opendoor and Zillow. The model worked — to varying extents — thanks to rock-bottom interest rates and the hot US housing market. In fact, data from ATTOM shows that home flipping sales represented 9.6% of all home sales in the first quarter of this year.

But now, with mortgage rates hitting 7%, the market is starting to turn. An increasing number of home-sellers are dropping prices, leaving Redfin and others with considerable inventory on their books that they can’t shift, and that they’ve likely already spent thousands on fixing up.

Since their respective peaks in Feb '21, Opendoor shares are down 94%, Zillow's have shed 83% and Redfin stock is down 95%. Even with access to millions of data points on what makes houses valuable, home-flipping is really, really hard.

More World

world

Tom Jones7/10/26

The most watched soccer match in US history got less than a third of the views the Super Bowl did

Between a top-spot finish in the group stage, a sweeping performance against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32, and the president’s controversial intervention, Monday evening’s USMNT game against Belgium had, to put it lightly, shaped up into a box-office clash.

And though the US players’ performance on the pitch might not have lived up to the high drama off it, American soccer fans certainly showed up. According to early estimates, the 4-1 defeat against Belgium was the most watched soccer telecast in US history, hauling some 40 million viewers on average across the coverage on Fox and Telemundo.

That may be a record tally in the US for the sport that much of the world calls some variant of “football” — besting the 36.2 million who tuned in to watch the team’s previous knock-out match — but it’s still peanuts in comparison to the sport that shares the same name in the States.

World cup viewers chart — Sherwood News

burning question

Over 50% of Americans say climate change is a serious threat; only 10% think their compatriots feel the same

That perception gap on the issue is among the highest in the world, per a new Gallup poll.

Youth Climate Strikes Break Out Across The U.S.

Reddit alien stock exchange

Reddit’s advertising business is getting bigger. It’s already booming.

The platform will plow more money into its ad offerings as it cements itself as a “trove of human intelligence.”

Tom Jones6/22/26

45% of Americans say they’re not taking a summer vacation this year, mostly due to costs

Flight comparison site Skyscanner is recommending some cheaper alternatives closer to home.

Bored annoyed man looking funny and angry during his summer staycations

Despite slight declines, Japanese tourism figures are still hovering around record highs

Tourism: Still big in Japan.

Aerial view of Tokyo cityscape with Fuji mountain in Japan.

Latest Stories

Sherwood Media, LLC and Chartr Limited produce fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and are fully owned subsidiaries of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, Robinhood Money, LLC, Robinhood U.K. Ltd, Robinhood Derivatives, LLC, Robinhood Gold, LLC, Robinhood Asset Management, LLC, Robinhood Credit, Inc., Robinhood Ventures DE, LLC and, where applicable, its managed investment vehicles.

©2026 Sherwood Media, LLC