Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:Z) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jeremy Hofmann: Yes. Thanks, Ron. It’s Jeremy Hoffman. I’ll start on the Rentals. Yes, we’re really pleased, and I’ll let Jeremy Wacksman hit more of it, but up 34% year-over-year this quarter, up 42% in multifamily. And yes, it’s executing on all cylinders. So multifamily properties were up 28% in Q3. Total active listings across both multifamily and single-family up 45% year-over-year. And then obviously, the traffic continues to be really strong. We’re industry leading there and grew double digits there. So we’re really, really happy with how we’re executing. And like I said in my prepared remarks, we expect 30%-plus growth in Q4 there, too. So Jeremy, anything else you want to add there?

Jeremy Wacksman: No, I think that’s right. I think it’s you hit it earlier to the largest and most engaged audience using great products and services across both multi- and single-family listings. Some macro helps in terms of occupancy rates decreasing and more supply in the market means the advertisers need our high-quality customers. And so you’re seeing the team execute to drive a lot of revenue growth there across the marketplace as a whole. And we get really excited about that growth continuing. And again, the Rentals business, great business, fast-growing business, a bigger part of our business, as Rich talked about, but also incredibly strategic as half of those renters are thinking about buying and half of those renters are some of the most affordability challenge first-time homebuyers that will be ready for VHL and our great PA someday as the macro normalizes there.

So incredibly great business, growing really fast, teams executing really well and super strategic for us long term. And then on Showcase, how many advertisers or agents, I think, was your question, how many agents are incremental. I mean it’s a mix and intentionally so. And I think as we scale it beyond the initial markets, we expect to see that, be interesting to learn how that mix pans out. You can imagine, similar to our overall strategy when Listing Showcase helps great agents and teams grow their business, and it’s a business grow driver for them. You find them that look like are great Premier Agents today that want to use it, but you also find new customers who were less interested in the products that Premier Agent has to offer, really interested in using Listing Showcases a way to grow their business.

So we’re pleased with the early mix. It wasn’t, there’s not any sort of intentional target there. For us, it’s really more about learning with partners this early MVP and V1 as we’re building V2 and getting ready for scale.

Ronald Josey:

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Operator: Thank you. Our final question comes from Tom Champion from Piper Sandler. Tom, please go ahead.

Thomas Champion: Good afternoon. Richard, Jeremy, I’m curious if you could talk about any changes or updated thoughts on the competition? How do you think about UV growth@homes.com? And then maybe for Jeremy Hoffman, really appreciate the comments on the cost structure, very helpful. Just curious if you could talk a little bit about your thoughts around head count growth into next year? Thank you.

Rich Barton: Hey, Ron. We’re not seeing any impact really from the noise out there other than posting great results and making great progress against our growth pillars as we’ve been chatting about on this call. I think the way we inoculate ourselves from having to over focus on competition is by really focusing on building awesome software for our users and our customers and our partners and software that solves real customer pain points like the interactive floor plans and 3D virtual walk-throughs and real-time booking and to come out for rental applications and more, and we are actually adding Follow Up Boss now, which is really quite a beloved CRM in the — with a lot of customers in the agent space. So we believe that the way we win long term really is by creating, integrating seamlessly and creating the Super App for customers and a Super App for our partners.

We like that it’s hard. We like that it takes kind of mad software skills to do it. It’s worked well. Focusing on this has worked well for us so far. We’ve cited a bunch of data on that, but not only do we have the biggest, most engaged audience, but 80% of it comes to us directly. We anticipate that will continue to work. Maybe I’ll throw to Jeremy Hoffman that last question and then we’ll close.

Jeremy Hofmann: Yes. And just on the cost structure, I think just to reiterate what I said before, no specific guidance around 2024, but we do feel like we are at around the right level of fixed cost for the opportunities we see ahead. And then variable costs will grow as we grow revenue, and we’ll look for operational efficiencies along the way, but feel really good about what we’re investing against and then also the long-term margin profile of the things that we’re investing against. And then beyond that, just reiterating that marketing is a different line item for us and one that will assess based on growth opportunities. But overarchingly feeling quite good about the cost structure.

Thomas Champion: Thank you, both.

Operator: Thank you. That is the end of the Q&A session. I will now hand back over to Rich Barton for closing remarks.

Rich Barton: We really appreciate the thoughtful questions from, and we look forward to updating you as we plan on continuing to make progress along our growth pillars. Thank you very much for your continued trust and investment in Zillow. Talk to you soon.

Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

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