Redfin Corporation (NASDAQ:RDFN) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So Chris, I don’t know if you want to add any color, but it’s not a rosy forecast when you have to take the number down, you want to give yourself a margin there.

Chris Nielsen: Two other comments I’d make for the rest of this year and into the first part of next year also and that’s that our rentals business continues to make profit — progress towards profits. And the fourth quarter of this year, we expect to be adjusted EBITDA positive and we expect continued growth into next year. So that’s a place where the bottom line is changing for Redfin and that’s making a difference and I expect it to continue to make a difference into next year. And then the second is something else we talked about on the call today, and that is that our digital revenue has been increasing. We expect it to continue to increase, so that becomes an even more important contributable contributor to profits as we move forward.

Glenn Kelman: AJ, the final thing to say about 2023 is that it’s half over. So you always have more confidence in your projections when you have six months on the comm instead of 12, especially when you’ve got about 40 days of visibility on revenue, a perfect visibility on revenue, at least in real estate services. Mortgage is a little bit.

AJ Hayes: Got it, great. Thanks for the color there. And then Chris, you touched on digital ad revenue. Kind of just want to explore that a little bit further. Has the introduction of advertisements at all influenced the consumer experience from what you’ve heard? And then looking more long-term, should we expect this to continue when housing starts, it starts to perp back up and you might not need this additional high margin revenue stream. Just essentially trying to gauge is it safe to assume that this is kind of part of the long-term plan and here to stay?

Chris Nielsen: It is. So if we run video ads on the side, I think it will affect our standing with Google and other search engines. And that’s a tradeoff that we’re going to be very careful about just because it’s been buttering our bread for so long, getting traffic from Google and other places like that. So I don’t know that we’re going to be the absolute most aggressive about monetizing every single webpage with display ads. We have other ways to monetize that customer that can be very lucrative, but it’s a long-term component of our strategy. Real estate services is so cyclical, the margins really get compressed in a down environment. And obviously digital revenues can be a little bit cyclical, but not nearly as much. And so just having that green money come in month after month has been really good for our P&L.

AJ Hayes: Thanks Glenn. Good luck the rest of the year.

Glenn Kelman: Thanks.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Bernie McTernan with Needham and Company. Your line is open.

Stefanos Crist: Hey, this is Stefanos Crist calling in for Bernie. Thanks for taking our questions. Just a quick one on the mortgage attach rates, any more detail there and put some takes and maybe expectations for the rest of the year?

Glenn Kelman: Mostly what was in the prepared remarks. So we think we can move that number up just because we’ve seen some markets is at a sustainable rate of 30% plus, but it is going to be hard. So in some areas Bay Equity just doesn’t have enough loan officers. They need to recruit more. In other areas we need to make sure that we just have really good sales execution by having executives visit those offices. But it’s a challenge we’re taking personally. I’m flying to markets that have low attach rates to make sure that I understand exactly what’s wrong from the Bay Equity side and the Redfin side and just showing up makes a statement all by itself. So I don’t think we’re going to see a seven point jump in attach rates from quarter-to-quarter, but I do think we’re going keep moving up.