Anywhere Real Estate Inc. (NYSE:HOUS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

From a commission split perspective, the good news is the competitive side of that is significantly more rational and like I called out the biggest impact that we’re going to have in us is pure agent mix. So to the extent that again we get more home sale transactions. There is a hopeful benefit in the future that the agent mix kind of normalizes itself out. And we have agents across the spectrum, delivering the home sale transactions. If that was the case today if we didn’t have this agent mix hit, we probably see a significantly better profile on commission splits, but until that changes, we kind of are where we are. So probably not the answer you wanted to hear, but that’s kind of how I’m looking at it in the short term.

Ryan Schneider: Yes, I don’t have a lot more to add on that. Ryan, I mean, if you just talk on the franchise side with a little more detail, our top 250 franchisees are about 70% of our business right now. And our rebate tables are public, so you can see how the more business that people do the lower royalty rate that they earn and that’s up from whatever 65% five years ago, which is up from 57% 10 years ago, which is up from whatever it was back in the Cendant days that you’re talking about. So I think that this concentration, both on the franchise side, and then the agent — the best agents doing a higher percentage of deals have both created a little bit of a different kind of ecosystem in the margin that probably makes it less likely that you get some of those effects that happened in the downturn 15 years ago.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Tommy McJoynt with KBW. Please go ahead.

Tommy McJoynt: Hi, good morning guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Could you talk a little bit about what’s embedded in your guidance for the mortgage JV for next year either directionally or absolute EBITDA terms if you want to be that clear?

Charlotte Simonelli: Sure. As you know, it was a drain obviously on the year for us in 2022, the good news is, I do expect it to not be a drain in 2023 and then that has the benefit of a year-over-year impact as well. So I don’t imagine that we’re going to be like making money like we did two or three years ago, but the good news is that it shouldn’t be a drain on us. It should be positive and there is obviously a positive year-over-year benefit from that as well.

Ryan Schneider: The mortgages – where the competitive environment Tommy is also likely to help us. We’ve seen a couple people in mortgage make some pretty big strategic shifts that means we’re doing some things on the recruiting and kind of building the depth of our kind of joint venture in a way that’s pretty helpful. As you’ve seen some people pull back and so we’re hoping to reap some of the competitive environment benefits on that next year, even if it’s obviously kind of bit a tough business.

Tommy McJoynt: Thanks. And then just my second question. Can you remind us of some of the leverage covenants that you guys have on your revolver and some of your debt? And are there any concerns on — with the lower EBITDA next year you guys running into breaching any of those covenants? Or do you guys feel like there’s a pretty safe cushion?