Anywhere Real Estate Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 29, 2025

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Anywhere Real Estate First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call via webcast. Today's call is being recorded and a written transcript will be made available in the Investor Information section of the company's website tomorrow. A webcast replay will also be made available on the company's website. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Anywhere Senior Vice President, Alicia Swift. Please go ahead, Alicia.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Rebecca. Good morning, welcome to the first quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call for Anywhere Real Estate. On the call with me today are Anywhere's CEO and President, Ryan Schneider and Chief Financial Officer, Charlotte Simonelli. As shown on Slide three of the presentation, the company will be making statements about its future results and other forward looking statements during this call. These statements are based on current expectations and the current economic environment.

Speaker 1

Forward looking statements, estimates and projections are inherently subject to significant economic, competitive, antitrust and other litigation, regulatory and other uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of management, including, among others, industry and macroeconomic developments. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward looking statements. References made to April month to date in these remarks are reflected data through 04/25/2025. We have three large previously disclosed and expected one time free cash flow headwinds in 2025, which total approximately $115,000,000 We have excluded from our free cash flow guidance and for further discussion of these matters, please see our SEC periodic reports. Important assumptions and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward looking statements are specified in our earnings release issued today as well as in our annual and quarterly SEC filings.

Speaker 1

For those who listen to the rebroadcast of this presentation, we remind you that the remarks made herein are as of today, April 29, and have not been updated subsequent to the initial earnings call. Now I will turn the call over to our CEO and President, Brian Schneider.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Alicia. There's no one in real estate like anywhere. We have distinct advantages across our iconic brands, luxury leadership, franchise octane and end to end integrated business model. Our strengths are evident when you look at what's happening in the brokerage ecosystem in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. We continue to sell more luxury real estate than anyone else, gaining share even as others try to catch up to our industry leading position.

Speaker 2

We generate very strong economics from our high margin franchise business during a time when we saw private capital investing in this attractive market segment. Our integrated business model covers every step of the real estate transaction experience from brokerage to title and mortgage, strategic opportunity clearly resonating with others as you saw by their actions in the quarter. We are transforming our business at scale with the early adoption of emerging technologies like all leading companies. Now you can see our advantaged position in our Q1 performance. Despite a historically challenging housing market, we continue to demonstrate strong financial performance and strategically invest in the business to propel us for future success faster.

Speaker 2

We generated $1,200,000,000 of revenue and effectively breakeven operating EBITDA. Our 6% volume increase overwhelmingly organic substantially outperformed NAR's three percent volume growth in the quarter. Our market share gain in the quarter was driven primarily by our luxury success. Our luxury segment outperformed our portfolio and the market with share gains driven by growth in both units and price. April volumes are relatively flat, softer than Q1 due to market and macroeconomic volatility, and luxury continues to outperform in April.

Speaker 2

We launched Reimagine 25 in Q1 to transform how we operate as a company. Reimagine twenty five enables us as early adopters of new technologies to jump start a more innovative future and will serve as the foundation of our continued efforts to deliver better experiences for our customers faster and at lower cost. And speaking of cost, we delivered $14,000,000 of cost savings in Q1 and continue to target full year 2025 cost savings of $100,000,000 reinforcing our commitment to permanently lowering our cost base and enhancing our earnings power. Strategic growth highlights in Q1 include, we meaningfully expanded our luxury leadership across Sotheby's International Realty, Corcoran and Coldwell Banker Global Luxury, which are fueled by our unique value propositions and targeted talented agent networks. Our luxury volume was up 16% year over year in the quarter with both unit and price growth.

Speaker 2

Luxury listings increased 12% year over year. We sell more luxury homes than anyone across all luxury price points. For example, in Q1, we sold $345 10,000,000 plus homes, nearly doubling our Q1 twenty twenty four results and our best Q1 results since 2022. We sold 35% more $5,000,000 plus homes in Q1 than in Q1 twenty twenty four. Our Contriers Auction business, which earns both a buyer premium and a seller commission, ran successful auctions in New York City and Dubai in the quarter, selling high end properties with an average sale price over $4,000,000 And our Corcoran brand is leveraging its unparalleled expertise in new development to expand within its franchise network.

Speaker 2

Excitingly, we are initiating our first new development project with a franchisee, an 84 unit development in Nashville slated to launch this spring. Now both our own brokerage and franchise value propositions are increasingly resonating and paying off in our recruiting results. In Q1, our producing agent recruiting program in advisors delivered 30% year over year growth with growth over a % versus some of our biggest competitors. And in franchise, we welcomed 11 new US Franchisees to our high margin franchise network and added a couple of new international franchisees. And we accelerated our aggressive AI agenda, deploying generative AI at scale across many parts of our business to drive better experiences faster and at lower cost.

Speaker 2

We expect it to increasingly shape our culture, employee training, goal setting and daily operations. We shared with you before AI driven successes in different parts of our company, customer facing applications like listing concierge, product strategy, operational efficiency like brokerage document processing, and employee productivity. And since we last spoke, couple of our newer developments include piloting AI assistance to enhance productivity for both agents and employees, experimenting with, using AI to evaluate listing images to ensure the best photos are utilized for marketing the home and piloting the automating production of more complex documents like a first draft of a franchise agreement. And now as we approach the nine month mark since significant industry practice changes, we remain confident in our proactive approach to change and how our agents and franchisees have successfully navigated these shifts and consistently demonstrated their value to consumers. We are leveraging these changes to enhance our end to end capabilities.

Speaker 2

For instance, we are beginning to pilot mortgage and title marketing within the buyer broker agreements we use with customers to increase revenue capture opportunities and be a new avenue for future growth. Now speaking of industry change, since we last spoke, NAR released a slightly modified clear cooperation policy. The debates about private listings have continued, and both Redfin and Zillow have announced that certain listings that start as private listings will ultimately not be permitted to be displayed on their websites. While the implementation of all of these topics is deeply in flux and we expect a lot more change to occur, let me tell you our current thinking and why Anywhere agents and franchisees are well positioned for success. Anywhere real estate is aggressively advocating for transparency and the broad and public distribution of nearly all listings because we believe it is best for buyers to see all the inventory and most critically, it helps sellers get the highest price for their home, full stop.

Speaker 2

With the recent announcements by Zillow, Redfin, and others intended to prevent certain private listings from ever appearing on their websites, we believe our strategic view gets even stronger. Specifically, I do not think that advising the vast majority of sellers to do a private risk listing and risk their property not getting displayed on some of the most prominent public portals is a winning strategy. Now Anywhere Real Estate has the world's largest network of trusted agents who are incentivized only to do what's right for their customer, even if a different action is more beneficial to the brokerage. And we remain committed to doing what's right for buyers and sellers, which we believe starts with advocating for transparency, consumer choice and the broad and public distribution of listings. With that, let me turn it over to Charlotte for more details on Q1 twenty twenty five.

Operator

Good morning, everyone. Anywhere delivered strong Q1 twenty twenty five financial results, achieving about breakeven Q1 operating EBITDA, which is our best Q1 since 2022, directly underscoring the power of having a core business that combines leading brands, technology powered agents, and the ability to deliver an end to end real estate transaction. Because of this solid foundation and our proactive approach, we are actively executing on the offense as we embark on the next phase of our company's transformation. I will now highlight our Q1 twenty twenty five financial results. Q1 revenue was $1,200,000,000 up 7% versus prior year, and operating EBITDA was negative 1,000,000 increase of $12,000,000 or 92% versus prior year, primarily due to higher transaction volume and cost savings.

Operator

We realized $14,000,000 of cost savings and are on target to achieve $100,000,000 of cost savings for 2025, with 85% of our savings already identified. Q1 free cash flow was negative $130,000,000 a $15,000,000 year over year improvement despite the third consecutive year of a challenging market and our slowest seasonal quarter each year. Consistent with our capital allocation priorities, we used our free cash flow to invest for the future. We continue to make selective investments to drive growth, including attracting new agents and franchisees at better margins, expanding our technology platform with new products and services, and streamlining our operations to deliver better experiences faster at lower costs. We will continue to proactively seek opportunities to strengthen our capital structure, and I am confident in our position with no springing maturities due before March 2026 and ample liquidity available on our revolver.

Operator

Now let me go into more detail on our first quarter business segment performance. Our Anywhere Brands business, which includes leads and relocation, generated $97,000,000 in operating EBITDA. Operating EBITDA increased $7,000,000 primarily due to increases in transaction volume and lower expenses. Our franchise business expanded margins in the quarter showing improved financial octane with modest changes driven by the market. Our Anywhere Advisors operating EBITDA was negative $47,000,000 an improvement of $12,000,000 versus prior year driven by higher revenue and lower operating costs.

Operator

This business generated $21,000,000 in operating EBITDA before the transfer of intercompany royalties and marketing fees paid to our franchise business. Agent commission splits were 80.4%, which marks 12 consecutive quarters with our agent commission split rate about 80. And this is all despite adding about 650 producing agents in q one, underscoring our strong agent value proposition. Anywhere Integrated Services Q1 twenty twenty five operating EBITDA of negative $18,000,000 was down $3,000,000 from Q1 twenty twenty four. Revenue was up $7,000,000 However, that was offset by higher expenses due to volume, which included unfavorable commercial mix as well as timing of certain expenses and our continued investment and expansion of Upward.

Operator

Our strong core business also allows us the financial freedom to continue to think about the next phase of transformation for anywhere. Years of financial discipline and proactive planning have strengthened our position today and forced our competitors to play catch up in buying or building the attractive assets we already have. We continue to enhance our operations through reimagine '25, an ambitious multiyear transformation effort designed to set us up for greater growth and success in the future. This comprehensive program encompasses all aspects of our enterprise, and we expect it will significantly contribute to our savings target for 2025. By leveraging technology to reduce manual processes, we aim to enhance our value proposition and unlock growth opportunities.

Operator

No area of our business is out of scope for this transformation. All of our core businesses and corporate teams are engaged, finding new and innovative ways to deliver better experiences faster and at lower cost. Some of our most recent examples include, in title operations, we established a national operations center to seamlessly reassign specialists across states to cover surges in demand, showcasing the power of our newly centralized and standardized team without requiring incremental resources. We are piloting a new AI driven process to automate bank statement review and commission allocation, improving efficiency and enabling faster payments to agents. An automation of journal entries and other manual accounting tasks has resulted in the reduction of about 35% of previously manual tasks with more to go.

Operator

Our capital allocation priorities remain investing in the business and reducing debt. We plan to both reduce our gross debt and improve our earnings through the financial momentum we are building now. Using an illustrative $600,000,000 operating EBITDA, our leverage would decrease by 2.9 turns based on EBITDA improvement alone. At $750,000,000 operating EBITDA, leverage would be reduced by 3.8 turns. This brings us much closer to our target three times leverage and we will not stop there as deleveraging remains a top priority for us.

Operator

Now turning to our 2025 estimates. Given what we know today, we still expect operating EBITDA for the full year to be about $350,000,000 with the biggest swing factor being the housing market itself, which is inherently volatile. Q2 operating EBITDA should look similar to prior year as we anticipate investments in the business will partially offset our savings delivery in the quarter. We have proven our free cash flow delivery remains strong in both good and bad markets and we anticipate our 2025 free cash flow excluding one time items, to be similar to 2024. Free cash flow, like EBITDA, is driven by the overall housing market and may also be impacted by additional investments we make to drive growth and advance our technology strategy.

Operator

I am proud of what we have accomplished in the first quarter and even more excited for the future. We have demonstrated Anywhere's strength, agility, and resilience, and I am even more excited for what comes next as our strong results afford us the ability to aggressively plan for tomorrow. We are transforming how we operate, driving new efficiencies. We are going to continue to lead from the front and will seize any opportunity to strengthen our market leading position. Let me now turn the call back to Ryan for some closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Charlotte. Anywhere has proven our ability to deliver results in a tough housing market and through changing industry dynamics, all while propelling our strategic progress forward and delivering better experiences faster and at lower costs. As we accelerate our strategic growth and capitalize on our competitive advantages, we are ready to charge ahead. With that, we will take your questions.

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Anthony Polon with JPMorgan.

Speaker 3

Thanks. Good morning.

Speaker 4

Good morning, Tony. I guess,

Speaker 3

Ryan, you gave some views on your view on clear cooperation policy. Can you maybe just talk a bit more about how it's being approached just within the system by like your franchisees and your owned brokers? And also maybe just if we're thinking about it from the vantage point of investors, like how to think about that coming back to either benefit or work against like investors in the stock?

Speaker 2

Yes. So look, I hear loud and clear not only from our own agents and franchisees, but I hear it from other companies' agents that, you know, you know, you know, the the consensus is is you want as many people to see a listing as possible to get the best price. You want your buyers to have access to that inventory, and, you know, it's the way people wanna do business. They wanna do what's best for the customer, even if, you know you know, you could make a different decision and push for something that might be better for the brokerage. So I hear that out there in the market, and then I see, you know, Zillow and Redfin's choice that is theirs to make, that if they don't wanna display listings that were private, then that's their choice.

Speaker 2

And I think having your listings on public portals is is a helpful thing in selling your selling your house. So we're leaning in pretty hard to, not clear cooperation itself, but more just the fact that the broad distribution of listings is best for the customer, whether buyers or sellers. Now look, there is a role for private listings out there, and we sell private listings today. And our owned brokerage brands, Coldwell Banker, Corcoran, and Sotheby's International Realty, all have private listing capabilities that are active today. And and we sell, you know, private listings where it's right for the customer.

Speaker 2

But it's a pretty small share of those things. We are gonna go ahead, like I told you last quarter, Tony, and finish building the private listing capabilities for our franchise brands, partly because there is a subset of, you know, listings that, you know, should be private or people want private, and we want them to have that choice. And so we want that. But we also wanna build it so that we're we're never at a competitive disadvantage if private listings really does become more prevalent out there in the industry. So we're definitely gonna have that.

Speaker 2

And so, you know, I think the way it comes back to to, you know, to investors is, you know, you know, where are you likely to see the success with the end customer, not just in the near term on the current listing, but over time. Right? I I think you can you can you can probably talk a customer into doing something against their interest once. But over time, you know, that those kind of things are tend not to be really sustainable business, approaches. So we want to do what's right for the customer no matter what.

Speaker 2

And we think for almost everybody, it starts with that broad distribution of listings. And we have a belief that will pay off, you know, not just in us selling and and helping people buy homes, but in how we're able to actually recruit more agents and more franchisees. And we saw that in our recruiting results in the first quarter. We had some, you know, actual, you know, very successful agents coming to join us in q one. We had some amazing results against our competition.

Speaker 2

And some of the feedback on that was, you know, they liked the way we were dealing with listings and customers.

Speaker 3

Okay. That's really helpful. Thank you. And then just my second question is with regards to commission rates, they were down a little bit year over year. But can you maybe comment on, you know, what, you know, portion of that was maybe from pressure on buy side commissions and just maybe where we are in terms of finding out where that ultimately settles out here?

Speaker 2

Yeah. You know, we're the one company that does that that shares this this data publicly. And, you know, they were down, you know, a a few basis points, you know, two basis points in one of our businesses and six basis points, you know, in the other. A little bit of the drop was buy side and a little bit of the drop was on the list side. And so, you know, we've now had, like, three quarters in a row here where, you know, where the, you know you know, there really hasn't been that much movement, you know, frankly, less than we had predicted when we did our budget for this year, to be honest.

Speaker 2

The one dynamic you should probably know is there's a little more drop in luxury. So, you know, where you actually see it showing up more is a little bit more in the luxury side, Tony. When I say a little bit more, we're talking, you know, single digit basis points here, not not anything bigger than that. But, you know, I I do think there's something about the the savvy buyer and seller maybe being a little more sophisticated and maybe negotiating a bit harder. But on the flip side, you know, when you're do doing doing $1,050,000,000 dollar deals or whatever, there's always been a lot of commission negotiation happening there, in history.

Speaker 2

So I'm probably not that surprised by it.

Operator

But to that point though, Tony, because we had twice as many 10,000,000 and above listings, that has a natural pressure on ABTR because those price points tend to have lower.

Speaker 2

Many sales. That's Not listing. Sorry. Sales. Yeah.

Operator

Sales. Yeah. That that tends to put pressure on the ABCR, just the mix of the business.

Speaker 3

Got it. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Campbell with Stephens Incorporated.

Speaker 4

Hey guys, good morning. Hi John. Hey. So Ryan, I think you probably anticipated a few of these CCP questions. So I'm hoping we can revisit that, maybe zoom out a little bit on where you stand.

Speaker 4

So you obviously got just framing it up, you got Zillow, eXp, Redfin on one side with a pretty firm stance and you've got Compass on the other side. In your prepared remarks, you called out advocating for both consumer transparency and choice. Those seem to be kind of the battle cries on each side of the debate. But you I I wanna put words in your mouth, but if I capture this correctly, you believe that listing should be syndicated to the portal, but you disagree with the Zillow move where it's basically banning, you know, all private listings that don't follow their standards. So then it's like you're you're willing to

Speaker 2

That that's not right,

Speaker 5

John. Okay.

Speaker 2

Go ahead. I'm I'm for the Zillow move. Now it benefits Zillow, and it may come back to be a problem for, you know, everybody else. But in general, we fall down look. I mean, look.

Speaker 2

Choice is fine. And like I said, we sell some private listings today kind of thing. But, you know you know, I think the best thing for customers for almost everybody is broad distribution of your listings because that's how you get the best price. And, again, you know, I could tell my agents, hey. Do this, and we'll make a little more money on this deal, but we'll do it probably at the customer's expense is my personal feelings, John.

Speaker 2

And so, you know, we come down stronger on the broad distribution. We come down stronger on being totally fine if private listings aren't on the public portals. And we think there's still a place for private listings. And, again, we probably have as many as anybody given our luxury business, but, you know, that's okay. So we're we're leaning pretty heavily into that the one side of that debate.

Speaker 2

Now we have all the private listing capabilities. We have them in three brands already. We're gonna have them in our franchise brands, you know, here in the second quarter. But I would position that more as, you know, for the niche people who need them and as kind of a defensive move that if the world becomes much more focused on that, then we have the ability to make sure our agents are never disadvantaged and our franchisees. But but we're more on the, you know, we're we're more on the broad distribution side because we think it's best for the customer.

Speaker 2

It really comes down to just best for the customer and our belief.

Speaker 4

Okay. Okay. That makes sense. I appreciate you clarifying that. And then maybe if you could share any kind of insights on I know Corcoran launched the private listing network.

Speaker 4

Kind of what your what your sense is for, trends there, if you're seeing anything different than the rest of the business?

Speaker 2

No. I mean, we've got private we've we've had a private listing network in Corcoran before. It was just kind of, I don't know, relaunched with a a different brand name is the right way to think about it. We have one in Sotheby's. We have one in Coldwell Banker.

Speaker 2

And, you know, we sell some listings, you know, privately today. I don't I don't I I know the number. I'm not gonna disclose it. But it's, you know, it's really is more of a niche thing, especially skewing in the luxury area. And, we haven't seen any change in that trend because our agents, they just are usually they're doing what is best for the customer, what the customers want.

Speaker 2

And, you know, in the vast majority of situations, the best thing to do is to get as many people looking at a listing as you can to get the best price and then also have, you know, our our our buyers be able to see as many listings as possible. So, you know, it's great to have the capabilities. It's great to use it, you know, in those niche cases that we've done for years and decades, frankly. And it's great to have the capability just, you know, from a defensive standpoint, but, but there there's not any sort of flood of customers, you know, to that approach because, again, I think most people realize the best way to get the best price on your house is to have, you know, a lot of people looking at it.

Speaker 4

Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. And then, Ryan, I I apologize if I missed the details here, but did you provide the exact year over year change in April open versus closed volumes?

Speaker 2

Yeah. It was basically flat. Yeah. Open and closed volumes, basically flat so far. And that's through April 25 or something on through Friday.

Speaker 2

Looks really flat. You know, the macro the market and macro volatility, and I don't mean housing market, I mean the broader, you know, economy. You know, there's clearly been a lot of volatility in April. That's the biggest thing I'm hearing from agents is what's affecting April versus q one. So it's it's it's flat so far through the month.

Speaker 2

There may be a little headwind with where Easter fell this year versus last year in in the April numbers, but but mostly the the overall market and macro volatility is what our agents are saying is has it more, you know, flat, in our data at least.

Speaker 4

Yeah. Makes sense. And, I mean, we've heard that's better than what we've heard from maybe some other market proxy. So that's, sounds good on your end. Yeah.

Speaker 4

I don't know if you have, the granularity of this, and it might might not matter too much. But you mentioned volatility. We've heard that a lot as well. Obviously, rates moved a lot in you know, throughout April. Any sense for how the transaction trends move kind of week to week, maybe what that exit rate was last week?

Speaker 2

Not really. I mean, you know, it moves around, but some of that is just bluntly kind of like how our reporting kinda works as we grab data for franchisees. You know you know, some people report in one day. Some people, it takes a few extra days sometimes. So not really anything week to week that we've seen.

Speaker 2

I just think kind of flat's a good number for the month. And and it wasn't like March was flat. You know, March was pretty consistent with the quarter, but definitely there was a lot of macro change here in our economy in April. And I think you can see it kind of getting us to kind of the flat year over year in opens and close in the month so far.

Speaker 4

Excellent. Thanks, Ryan.

Speaker 6

Thank you, John.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Tommy McJoynt with KBW.

Speaker 6

Hey, good morning, guys.

Speaker 1

Good morning.

Speaker 4

Good morning.

Speaker 6

Yes. A question on the integrated services or title segment. So the bottom line trends there underperformed the improvements seen in brands and the advisor segments. And I think you called out some investments in that segment. Can you maybe quantify what that investment drag is?

Speaker 6

And and then when we will, you know, potentially see that conclude?

Operator

Yeah. So on the investment side, it's a couple of different things. So we're making investments in the agents to recruit, you know, agents, and you saw our results there. Right? So we had 600 about 650 producing agents recruited, but I think Ryan also mentioned that the GCI attributed to those was, like, 30% up.

Operator

So they're they're very solidly producing agents, and so there's a little bit of a an influx there. I think some of the other increases are around our technology investments because we are investing in the short term to deliver some of the efficiencies from our re reimagine '20 '5 program. And so the savings are actually more heavily weighted to the back half of the year, and so you'll see that come through. The other thing is upward. So, you know, it has a drag in in title because, you know, until we have critical mass in that business, it's still in the build phase.

Operator

A lot of these businesses take, you know, a year, two years, whatever to get to to full critical mass. So that's that's another piece of some of the investments. But I think what you're gonna see in the back half of the year across our businesses is that the savings are gonna step up in a in a material way. And then the the longer some of these upward titled ventures are on the books, they're starting to become much more productive. So this was always gonna be the case.

Operator

You know, these things are pretty much on or ahead of our plans. So I feel good about it, and I feel good that we also have 85% of our savings identified.

Speaker 6

Got it. And can you just remind us sort of what success looks like in that that upward title title investments, whether it comes through in something quantifiable like attach rates on title or anything else that you guys can can point to for metric wise?

Speaker 2

Well, I mean, look, each of them is their own company. And remember, it is us and a group of franchisees. So, you know, the core metric of success is just the, you know, the bottom line results that come out of it. But it's got the strategic halo of, you know, being helpful to franchisees, open up a new profit pool that they never had access to before because they weren't big enough to have their own title company. And then it's got that, also halo of recruiting, new franchisees with that as part of the value proposition.

Speaker 2

And then again, hopefully tightening the relationship with the franchisee that will again, hopefully help us at renewal. So it's it's a pure, you know, you know, let's grow our bottom line kind of approach. But with those kind of strategic franchise halos, that, you know, complements a pretty pretty attractive franchise business already.

Operator

And some of these, individual units are already profitable individually. It's just that as we launch more, there's startup costs, etcetera.

Speaker 6

All makes sense. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Bouley with Barclays.

Speaker 5

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. So maybe sticking on the listings exclusivity topic. I'm just getting back to that. The question is on kind of the specific drawbacks that you guys see to a more, I guess, robust exclusive platform.

Speaker 5

So you implied that the exclusive listings, I guess, in a vacuum would benefit the big scaled brokerage financially. But I guess, do you have any math around kind of the benefit of broad public distribution? Or is it more kind of really taking your own agent and home buyer seller feedback? And I guess if you could extend that to how does that your position on this impact recruiting, of agents today? Thank you.

Speaker 2

So two things. So first, look, I mean, you can look at, you know you know, there are what I would consider some credible third party studies. Bright MLS has done, I believe, two now, that just show that, you know, broad distributional listings means home sell for more than homes that are are, you know, marketed privately. You know, we've done our own analysis on that. Everybody's done other people have done analysis on it.

Speaker 2

Almost everybody comes to the same conclusion, is broad distributional listing means a higher price for the home. So, you know, that's the that's the reason right there. Right? And what's best for the customer kind of thing. So we really start with that.

Speaker 2

And then, you know, and then, you know, the the feedback from our agents, of course, is important. But, you know, like I said, some of our recent recruiting success, which is, you know, frankly, was a lot better than it was a year ago as I gave you the stats on, especially versus some of our our our bigger competitors, you know, is partly because agents like kind of the approach we're taking to listings. You know? And so, you know, again, there while there's a role for exclusive and select cases and we sell a bunch of that stuff just because of our luxury presence, you know, I don't I don't think this is that hard of a of a thing to think through. Right?

Speaker 2

I mean, you know you know you know, the more listings I can do exclusively, my brokerage makes more money, but, you know, that may not be the best thing for the customer. And I think if you don't do the best thing for the customer in the long term, businesses get into real trouble that way as do industries. So that's why we believe what we believe and the way we're gonna push it, and we think it'll pay off in, you know, not just, again, selling homes for higher prices for customers, but, you know, recruiting agents who wanna do business that way.

Operator

Yeah. Let's be clear. We do believe this is a better financial decision too. It is for the customer, but like to Ryan's point, the long term for the agent recruiting and the stickiness of our agent base and selling homes at higher prices, we do believe that's a better financial outcome for us as well.

Speaker 5

Got it. Okay. Yeah. Thank you both for that. And, and and, you know, obviously, was gonna be a lot of discussion on this topic today.

Speaker 5

Thank you for that. Yeah. Second one, I'll shift to a different gear, the balance sheet. I guess just first, any thoughts here as we said in April, how you're thinking about addressing the 2026 maturity? And then just any further kind of step back and broader color around the m and a environment, as you guys spoke about last quarter, maybe looking across brokerages and real estate prop tech, and all that.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Operator

Yeah. Sure. So, you know, we've we've spoken at credit conferences. We've spoken externally lots of different ways. We do plan to refinance the 20 the the convertible notes.

Operator

You know, you you can always assume that we're ready to go at any time. It's really a market thing. Obviously, the market volatility is not helping anybody in any industry right now. We are encouraged that, you know, there's a lot of activity starting back up again in the investment grade, side. So, you know, we're we're watching it very closely, but, you know, trying to refinance at the most volatile period is probably not the best course of action.

Operator

So we're seeing glimmers of hope as things start to crack open a little bit. We will be ready to go. We will refinance them at some point. And we have options. We have options whether it's in the, you know, syndicated deal or on the private side.

Operator

And as always, we'll be opportunistic to try to to strike at the right time. But you can you can assume that we're gonna be ready whenever that time presents itself.

Speaker 2

Yeah. And on the m and a front, on in the m and a front, you know, look, first off, we're we're open for business there, and and we're we're always looking at some things there. And I do still think that industry con consolidation's inevitable. Frankly, this whole industry could use more streamlining with all the margin pressure, you know, scale helps, etcetera. But, you know, it's been really funny if you think about it.

Speaker 2

If you go to the start of this year, we're four months into the year. There's been very, very, very little actual activity, you know. And the biggest deals have all come out of the mortgage sector. And it's and I find it interesting that the the the biggest deals have been around building that end to end capabilities, capabilities, something we've been working on for a while and always think it's critical. It's really hard, whether you're us or some of the people who just invested to try to do more of that, but it's a real opportunity.

Speaker 2

And we find it interesting to see that's where the M and A is. The other thing we saw in the quarter was we saw private capital actually invest in one of our franchise competitors, which I think is at least a positive signal about the opportunities in that kind of pretty high margin, pretty interesting business albeit one that's been subject to all the changes our industry has had going on. But we like that especially given how our franchise network economics benchmark against other public franchise economic players. And then finally, you know, look, we're still seeing more firms looking to sell across brokerage, title mortgage, and prop tech, But there's still a pretty big gap between the bid and the ask. And that's partly why I think there's just been fewer deals so far this year.

Speaker 2

We have helped our franchisees close some M and A deals in the first quarter. But, you know, there's some real opportunity. We're looking at it, spending more time on it as a leadership team. But bridging the the the bid ask is a bit of a challenge and, but it's a great place to put our effort. And we think there should be some opportunities there down the road.

Speaker 5

Well, great. Thanks guys. Appreciate the thoughts.

Speaker 2

All right. Thank you. Your

Operator

next question comes from the line of Nick McAndrew with Zelman.

Speaker 7

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. Just one for you Ryan. I'm curious obviously pretty strong ASP gains year over year and maybe just high level given all the macro volatility with the market sell off throughout April and maybe potential recession fears. Just anything to call out that you're noticing so far in April specifically in a luxury price point in terms of either home sitting longer in terms of days on market or maybe the behavior of that high price point seller, if you're starting to see any more price reductions from a seller standpoint? Just kind of thoughts overall, just given that that sell off thing.

Speaker 2

Great question. Look, April, like I said, it's got a lot of kind of you know, US markets and macro volatility kind of thing. And it's kind of led to, you know, in our book, kind of flat opens and close. But, you know, let me just rattle off some stuff. You know You know, we haven't seen days on market change, you know, in our own portfolio.

Speaker 2

It's basically flat. You know, we haven't seen cancellations change in April. That's something that's got a little bit of press write ups about, you know, of of deals being canceled. But our cancellation rate is is hasn't really changed in April compared to, you know, q one or or or previous years. We're not seeing much there.

Speaker 2

And then, you know, we are, you know, we're still seeing price growth in April, you know, across all segments, including, you know, the the ones that you asked about. But this trend of just not having enough homes and units being down and price being up has continued in April both on our opened and our closed volumes. So, you know, the underlying trends around price versus units, around days on market or on cancels haven't really changed, but there has been an overall just kind of drop in the level here, you know, down to kind of flat year over year, is what we've seen in April April so far. But it is pretty volatile out there, you know, so we're, you know, we're, you know, we're kind of watching it closely and not extrapolating too far from these things. But that that is what we're what we're seeing.

Speaker 2

And luxury continues to do well. I mean, like I said, our our luxury listings in q one were up 12% year over year. That's much better than the rest of our portfolio. You know, probably some more share gain, you know, in that in the in the future, we're hoping. And luxury outperformed in April.

Speaker 2

I mean, luxury is is is not flat in April. Luxury is up in April in volume so far. So that's that's what we're seeing in terms of some of those more nuanced trends there, Nick.

Speaker 7

Awesome. Yeah. That all makes sense. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Nick.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, there are no further questions.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Have a good rest of your day.

Operator

That concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Anywhere Real Estate Q1 2025
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