Real Estate Valuation Technology Company clean capital The company has conducted a new round of layoffs as part of its restructuring plan. The firm announced Wednesday that it is eliminating about 24% of its workforce, or more than 250 jobs, as it restructures departments and consolidates teams amid a tough housing market.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!According to the firm, this round of layoffs will include reductions in some leadership and managerial roles.
“We are consolidating different teams, so some leadership roles will be eliminated due to redundancies,” Duane Andrews, CEO of Clear Capital, said in an interview with HousingWire. “Folding departments makes sense when volume is low enough that you can’t retain multiple managerial positions at that point. So, we did it in a way that really makes sense for our business.
Employees were informed about the reduction in the workforce on Wednesday morning. Clear Capital said those who were affected by the layoffs will receive severance packages and outplacement services to help them with the transition.
This is the second round of layoffs conducted by Clear Capital in recent months. The firm reduced its workforce by about 27%, or about 350 positions, in October following a downturn in the housing market.
According to Andrews, the goal of the restructuring is to help the company weather the current industry headwinds and prepare for longer-term market conditions.
“This reduction in force is really a restructuring of our company opposite to the right size of the company – a fundamental restructuring of our company to meet the market where it is today, and where it is going to be in the future,” Andrews said. Said.
After this round of downsizing, Clear Capital’s total headcount will be around 800, according to the firm. The firm had about 1,400 employees at the end of 2021.
“We saw this as an adjustment not only to the current market environment, but also to the current changes happening in the valuation industry. We have been a company that has been investing very heavily in bringing data analytics and technology into the valuation space. We have been very involved in assessment modernization [and] investments over the past five years,” said Kenan Chen, EVP of Corporate Strategy at Clear Capital.
“We are using this as an opportunity to reorganize our company in a way that we feel will allow us to be successful in adopting these programs and going forward.”
Chen said the company took a holistic approach to restructuring and that in addition to layoffs, the executive team would take a pay cut of at least 10%.
“We do not take lightly the impact it has on people, their families and their careers. We don’t take any of those lightly,” Chen said. “This decision is being made with that in mind, but knowing that, it’s the right thing to do — not only for the health of the company going forward. but also for our customers and the people we want to continue to serve, [to] Continue to help move the industry forward.
The firm said the goal is to navigate the layoffs with “continued empathy.”
“We think this will put us in a very comfortable position to continue reinvesting in our technology and solutions for the foreseeable future. Certainly, we will need to continue to navigate changes in the marketplace, but we believe That this structure is going to give us the operating outlook that even if the market takes a further downturn, we need to be very flexible,” Chen said.
The firm, one of the largest valuation management companies in the US, cited similar reasons for layoffs late last year. At the time, Andrews said that the company was restructuring all divisions to reduce expenses and support future strategy – which would allow the company to refocus the business on key areas and ensure that they On track for sustainable development.
In July 2022, Clear Capital rolled out two Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) – a Property Valuation API and Risk Assessment API – to ease the adoption and implementation of modern valuation solutions, thereby enabling faster loan closings. The desktop assessment solutions were developed to meet the new desktop assessment guidelines introduced in April 2022.
In January 2022, the firm launched ClearPhoto, a photo review system that automates collateral underwriting in compliance with government-sponsored enterprise guidelines and internal credit policies. The company said the tool uses computer vision technology to automatically highlight the right files – which allows underwriters to make more efficient and informed decisions.
The Reno, Nevada-headquartered company was founded in 2001 and claims that with its desktop appraisal solutions, desktop appraisals can be completed 50% faster than traditional appraisals.
