By The Tim on January 24th, 2008 at 10:58 AM · 8 Comments
HouseValues, a locally-based online real estate agent lead generator has been swirling the drain since the national real estate market first started slowing down last year. They were in the news again yesterday, as their CFO jumped ship.
For the second time in a year, Kirkland-based HouseValues is restructuring its executive team and laying off employees.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, the online real-estate company announced its chief financial officer, R. Barry Allen, has resigned and 45 jobs are being eliminated.
Allen came to HouseValues last January during a restructuring that eliminated the chief operating officer position on as well as 60 other jobs. It also closed its Yakima call center in July, eliminating 100 jobs.
Anybody want to make wagers on how much longer HouseValues will last? I’ll be surprised if they still exist at this time next year. With the pressure of Zillow’s free service on one side, an increasingly slow market on the other, and generally poor service to their only real customers (real estate agents), I’m amazed they have lasted as long as they have.
(Elizabeth Rhodes, Seattle Times, 01.24.2008)
Categories: News
Tags: HouseValues, Rhodes, Seattle_Times
By The Tim on August 2nd, 2007 at 10:29 AM · 32 Comments
The stories have been piling up in my inbox at a faster rate than I’ve been able to post them lately, so that means that it is time for another bubble link roundup. I’ve got a lot of ground to cover in this post, and I don’t want to totally clutter up the front page, so click below to read the entire post.
[Read more →]
Categories: News
Tags: Ballard, Boone, Conway, Crellin, DeSilver, government_meddling, HouseValues, link_roundup, Olympian, puff_piece, Seattle_PI, Seattle_Times, staging, Tacoma_Tribune, Wells
By The Tim on January 25th, 2007 at 6:37 AM · 5 Comments
More bad news for local real estate lead-generation company HouseValues:
Amid a slumping real estate market, HouseValues Inc. is cutting 12 percent of its work force and closing its online lead generation business for mortgages.
Sixty employees are losing their jobs, all at the company’s Kirkland headquarters.
…
In a memo to employees, HouseValues Chief Executive Ian Morris said that the company has encountered a number of challenges because of a “steep decline in transaction volume in many local real estate markets.”
…
A HouseValues employee, who was not involved in the layoffs and asked not to be identified, said that “morale has been very low and a lot of people have been quitting from all departments.” As of September, the company employed 590 people. But the employee count has drifted lower in recent months as people have left for other jobs.
Also, HouseValues stock is down another 46% since I last mentioned them nine months ago. Maybe it’s just me, but now doesn’t exactly seem like the best of times to be building a business centered around real estate sales.
(John Cook, Seattle P-I, 01.25.2007)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: business, HouseValues
By The Tim on March 5th, 2006 at 10:24 PM · 5 Comments
Despite Seattle’s resilience so far, the deflating bubble elsewhere around the country continues to affect businesses based in the Seattle area. The latest victim—HouseValues—took a hit last week.
Last year’s booming housing market helped pump up 2005 profits at Kirkland-based HouseValues, but the company’s forecast for the current year led to a 28 percent stock-market pummeling Wednesday.
HouseValues said Tuesday, after the markets had closed, that slower growth in its business from real-estate agents and heavy investment in new businesses would keep its 2006 results well below Wall Street’s expectations.
Wall Street was quick to respond. HouseValues shares, already trading 33 percent below their July 2005 peak, dropped $3.79, or 28.1 percent, on Wednesday, closing at $9.71. That’s the stock’s lowest close since HouseValues went public in December 2004.
This could be our area’s first of many negative effects of the impending drop, or it could be all we see of the downturn. Since I seem to have misplaced my time machine, I’m not able to make that call. Of course that doesn’t mean I can’t wildly speculate anyway. My call? Well let’s just say that I’m glad I didn’t buy a house in the last year or two.
(Drew DeSilver, Seattle Times, 03.02.2006)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: HouseValues
