Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:Z) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

And so we couldn’t — we can’t shake that kind of engineering DNA that we have. So anyway, we like our position. I know that’s a roundabout way answering it, but it does basically give us great comfort that no matter what comes to pass from a competitive perspective or from a regulatory perspective or even from this kind of DOJ lawsuits perspective, it is — our position in power and confidence is derived from the fact that we have this great relationship with this giant audience and through by our trusted brand.

Lloyd Walmsley: Got it. Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Rich.

Rich Barton: Thanks Lloyd.

Operator: Thank you. The following question comes from Mark Mahaney with Evercore. You may proceed.

Mark Mahaney: Thanks. A couple of questions, please. You talked about seeing early signs of stabilization in 2023. Any more color on what those are, and does your crystal ball tell you that things are troughing in this March quarter? And then secondly, this disclosure, this commentary about how your PA customers are more over-weighted to first-time homebuyers than the market as a whole. Is there any quantification of that? And just talk through a little bit about what the implication of that is? So I think what that means is that you’ve got a pretty good brand set up with younger buyers, millennials and people are just entering the home buying stages of their lives. And just so that’s €“ so what from that. So just spend a little bit more time on what the — if you can quantify it and what you think the so what of that is? Thanks a lot.

Rich Barton: Okay. Thanks Mark. Maybe I’ll attack the e-com question of your first part, and then maybe pitch it over to Jeremy again for the second part, is that cool Jeremy? Okay, thumbs up on Zoom. And Brad, of course, jump in if I don’t get the macro stuff, I’m not the Chief Economist and they report to you now. So you’re probably in a better position to comment. I think the crystal ball is hard as you all know better than most and the crystal balls, no matter what you’re trying to predict right now are particularly foggy and volatile still, given the stream of conflicting data that we’re getting every day. And is the real estate market troughing? I certainly hope so, but we’re certainly not counting on it. I said — I did say mortgage rates have pulled back a bit, and you guys have seen that, but they are still pretty volatile.

Other inputs into this equation look pretty good in terms of just buyer demand, and we do have some supply constraints, just look at our unique users and you can see people do want to move. So that is — we see lots of decent buyer signal ready — wanting and ready to buy. Maybe if you want, maybe offline, Brad can give you more data on the specifics of the macroeconomic buildup. But because the overall macro is just so cloudy, it’s hard to make a call that this is the bottom and the things are just going to get better. It’s just the overall macro is certainly going to affect the housing. As I said in the prepared remarks, we are confident that a much more natural and healthy mover rate is more like six million or more home transactions a year, which gave — which led us to say 60 million transactions over the next 10 years is what we can count on.