Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:Z) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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So again, increased focus on partner quality and really aligning ourselves with partners that work more deeply with us across these product experiences, the rollout of real-time touring, the rollout of Zillow Home Loans and the rollout of seller solutions across all those things, we think is a recipe for success in the share growth you’re seeing and that’s why we have confidence is going to continue. And then in terms of what we think about going forward, that’s why we’ve started to bring those to more markets even at the same time, while we’re continuing to improve and mature the products themselves. We’re not done building the things we’re talking to you all about. We are building and deploying at the same time. And so, the capability improvements for both customers and our Premier Agent partners and our loan officers will continue, as you heard a bit from Rich and Jeremy about.

Operator: Our final question today comes from Dae K. Lee with JPMorgan.

Dae Lee: First one for Rich. A question on the [indiscernible] it sounds like you guys are exploring all of the options right now. But when you’re looking at it from a near-term perspective, what we can achieve on those from a longer-term perspective? And then another question on the mass market. about market one with your 6% transaction and share target by any the need to be rolled out more broadly to all of your markets? Or are something that can be added in a smaller number of markets within [indiscernible]?

Richard Barton: Dae, we — I think we got the second question but you’re — we’re having trouble with your audio a little bit. We didn’t quite get the first question. Can you repeat it?

Dae Lee: Hopefully, this timing is better. First one was on AI. It looks like you guys are exploring all options. But when you look at the opportunity from a near-term perspective, where are you most excited about? And thinking for a longer-term perspective.

Richard Barton: Yes. Okay, got it. Got it. All right. I’ll take that and then maybe kick it to Jeremy Wacksman for the enhanced market. Can we go faster question. I mean, look, we see real opportunity. I mean, I think a lot of the excitement and imagination has been sparked at kind of the ultimate user interface opportunity. with generative AI and moving towards a conversational UI. And then how might that change the kind of historic physics of the Internet and that’s fascinating to us and obviously, very important. I do think though that that is also going to be one of the longest lead time behavioral change ones. So we’re exploring that aggressively and are quite interested in making sure we feel like we are really well situated from an audience brand and unique data perspective and leaning into it such that we don’t somehow miss the boat and missed the memo on the change.

So we feel good there but that’s probably a longer lead time one. The stuff that we’re seeing in the short term really is like engineer productivity, marketer productivity, a little slower will be legal and accounting. We’re seeing — we’re already seeing some productivity gains for people on phones. So sales folks, partners, loan officers. It is early days but I think we’ll probably see more progress more quickly on the engine room stuff than the exposed stuff. All right. So hopefully, that helps you. And then Jeremy Wacksman, maybe hit the wind-up faster but I do want to know that, too.

Jeremy Wacksman: How enhanced markets contribute to our ultimate share goals. And the way I think about it is it’s a combination of national progress and local progress, right? And that’s what you’ve seen from us the last couple of quarters. You’ve seen relative outperformance overall nationally which largely has not been from the benefits of the enhanced market and the growth pillars in enhanced markets. And then now you’re starting to see the results and the progress we can get market by market. And so as we scale our enhanced market recipe to more markets, that will become a bigger contributor to our overall national footprint. But again, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to continue to keep working on improvements nationally and things that we don’t need to take in and market.

So, we really think about it as a combo of both. And that’s why we’re excited about the progress we’ve seen in the enhanced markets, the ability to bring some of these components to more markets and then as we mature the offerings and work with our partners, the share gains to continue.

Richard Barton: And it feels like a long runway of opportunity. It feels like durable opportunity to us that we are attacking methodically. We kind of did a major reset in organization last year in 2022. And now you’re seeing us both develop and engineer and launch new stuff across the board in enhanced markets and nationally. So this is kind of our year of execution and we’re posting really good relative results. It’s a terrible macro, housing macro and we can get really bummed out about that. But we internally are quite excited by our relative performance and the share gains we’re seeing in our enhanced markets. The 1,900 basis points of outperformance for our residential revenue line item purchased mortgage business up 73% year-over-year in a crap mortgage market.

we keep rolling out this real-time touring this real-time touring feature set that is really quite a game changer. And even rentals, like we’re seeing 28% year-over-year growth. So internally, we it’s tough weather outside but internally, I, for one, am really pleased at what I’m seeing. And I’m quietly reservably guardedly optimistic and excited as I look into the future, yes. I was assuming that that was the big wrap.

Operator: This completes the time for questions. I’ll now turn the call back over to Rich Barton for any closing remarks.

Richard Barton: All right. I just did my big closing remark. Great chatting. Great chatting with you all. Thanks for making the time. We look forward to chatting with you soon. Have a good day.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, today’s call is now concluded. We’d like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

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