Earnings call transcript: Hemnet Group AB sees strong Q2 2025 growth despite market challenges

Hemnet Group AB reported a robust financial performance for the second quarter of 2025, with significant growth in key metrics despite facing a challenging property market in Sweden. The company’s stock, however, experienced a slight decline of 0.72% to close at SEK 222.2, reflecting investor caution amid broader market uncertainties. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company currently trades at high valuation multiples across several metrics, suggesting investors are pricing in strong future growth expectations.

Key Takeaways

• Hemnet’s net sales increased by 19.4% year-over-year, reaching SEK 484 million.
• The EBITDA margin improved to 54%, up 0.6 percentage points from the previous year.
• Hemnet Max, a new product launched in April, showed promising initial results.
• The Swedish property market remains uncertain, with record-long listing times.
• Hemnet maintains a strong market position with 89% of property sales advertised on its platform in 2024.

Company Performance

Hemnet Group AB demonstrated strong financial results in Q2 2025, driven by innovative product offerings and an increase in average revenue per listing (ARPL) by 35% year-over-year. Despite a 9.3% decrease in published listings, Hemnet’s strategic focus on enhancing its digital platform and expanding its product offerings has bolstered its competitive position in the Swedish property market.

Financial Highlights

• Net sales: SEK 484 million (+19.4% YoY)
• EBITDA: SEK 261 million (+20.7% YoY)
• EBITDA margin: 54% (+0.6 percentage points)
• Free cash flow (LTM): SEK 775 million (+34%)
• Net debt: SEK 445 million (0.6x leverage)

Outlook & Guidance

Hemnet remains optimistic about its future growth, setting a revenue growth target of 15-20% annually and aiming for an EBITDA margin of 55%. The company plans to focus on increasing pre-market product development, optimizing product tiers, and expanding B2B monetization opportunities. With an overall Financial Health score of "FAIR" from InvestingPro, and moderate debt levels, the company appears well-positioned to pursue its growth initiatives. For detailed valuation analysis and growth projections, investors can access the comprehensive Pro Research Report, which provides expert insights and actionable intelligence for informed decision-making.

Executive Commentary

CEO Jonas Gustafsson stated, "We delivered a strong and solid performance in the second quarter with continued growth despite the softer underlying property market." He emphasized the importance of value-adding services and further penetration into premium segments as key drivers of the company’s strong ARPL development.

Risks and Challenges

• The Swedish property market is experiencing record-long listing times, which could affect transaction volumes.
• Macroeconomic uncertainties may impact consumer confidence and spending.
• Potential regulatory changes could alter market dynamics.
• Increased competition in the online property listing space could pressure market share.
• Any slowdown in product innovation could affect Hemnet’s growth trajectory.

Hemnet’s Q2 2025 results underscore its resilience and strategic initiatives in a challenging market environment. The company’s focus on product innovation and market expansion remains pivotal as it navigates economic uncertainties.

Full transcript - Hemnet Group AB (HEM) Q2 2025:

Conference Operator: Welcome to Hemnet’s Q2 2025 conference call. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing the pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers. Please go ahead.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group AB: Good morning everyone and a warm welcome to this 2025 Q2 release call for Hemnet Group AB. My name is Jonas Gustafsson and I’m the Group CEO of Hemnet. With me here on my side today at our headquarters in Stockholm, I have our Chief Financial Officer Anders Janov and our Head of Investor Relations Ludvig Siegelmark. As always, we will go through the presentation that was published on our website this morning during today’s session. I will kick it off with a summary of the main highlights here in the second quarter. Thereafter, Anders Janov will cover the financial details before I will come back in the end to wrap this mid-year session up. As always, there will be opportunities to ask questions at the end of the presentation.

Today’s session will be moderated by our operator, so please follow the operator’s instructions to ask questions through the provided dial-in details. With that, let’s get started and let’s move on to the next slide. Please, we delivered a strong and solid performance in the second quarter with continued growth despite the softer underlying property market with lower listing volumes. Net sales growth amounted to 19.4% compared to last year. Our ARPL (average revenue per listing) amounted to almost 35% driven by continued high demand for our value-added services. The continued penetration of value-adding services and especially further penetration to premium represent the key driver of the strong ARPL development. Number of published listings were down by 9.3% compared to last year. The Swedish property market has been impacted by the global macroeconomic uncertainty paired with all-time high supply and record long listing times and sales cycles.

In addition, 2024 Q2 was a very strong quarter boosted by the introduction of lower interest rates and downward interest rate trajectory. EBITDA grew by 20.7% leading to an EBITDA margin of 54%, up by 0.6 percentage points compared to the same period last year. The increased profitability is driven by strong sales growth paired with operating leverage in our underlying business during the quarter. We also launched Hemnet Max on the 1st of April and we’re quite pleased with the launch and the impact it has had on the overall conversion levels and to higher packages. I will come back to Hemnet Max and the initial data points that we’ve seen so far later on in this presentation. Now let’s turn to page three for a quick look at the financial performance. Net sales amounted to SEK 484 million, up by 19.4% compared to the same period last year.

Despite the challenging property market and a significant decline in listing volumes, EBITDA grew faster than revenues for the second consecutive quarter, increasing by 20.7% to SEK 261 million. The EBITDA margin amounted to 54% and we’re glad to see that we were once again able to increase our profitability while we continue to invest in the business, especially this quarter where we have faced more challenging underlying volumes. Anders will break down these profitability dynamics into more details as we move on in the presentation. Now let’s turn to page four and our ARPL development. ARPL grew by close to 35% year on year in the second quarter. The strong growth was primarily driven by more property sellers choosing our value-added services and especially Hemnet Premium. The conversion rate to higher tier packages increased and was supported by the launch of Hemnet Max on April 1.

Hemnet Max accounts for a smaller share of total upgrades, but the introduction has helped to drive further premium conversion and has clearly had a positive effect on the product mix. From this perspective, we are very satisfied with the initial results of Hemnet Max introduction. Now let’s move on and turn to page five for a review of the underlying listing volumes. On the left-hand side of this slide you’ll see a combined chart showing published listings per quarter and yearly, as well as the year-on-year change between quarters. Listings decreased by 9.3% in Q2 and amounted to 50.5 thousand after a more active start of the year. Listing volumes declined in the second quarter reflecting a softer market driven by macroeconomic uncertainty and tougher comparables.

As last year’s interest rate cuts in May and June drove accelerated listing activity, the market also shifted into a slower pace earlier than usual ahead of the summer this year as both sellers and agents appear to be more hesitant to list properties due to the record high supply and long selling times. Now turning to page six to look a bit more on how the market characteristics impact our business. I wanted to take this opportunity to provide a bit more color on the difficult situation the Swedish property market is currently in. As you can see on the graph, we’re currently experiencing an all-time high supply of listings paired with very long listings time. This makes for a difficult situation for all our stakeholders and especially the real estate agents.

As on-sale listing supply has grown, so has the so-called pre-market that is suffering from the same dynamics. A large share of the so-called pre-market supply is old supply and does not move. Based on our analysis, we see that roughly 50% of the pre-market inventory is older than 180 days and close to 70% of the so-called pre-market is older than 60 days. Given that very few transactions actually take place in the pre-market, this part of the market adds additional friction to an already difficult property market. This is especially true for buyers that need to navigate a large number of properties that are not actually for sale and for agents that are spending a significant part of their time on properties that are not for sale.

Going forward, Hemnet will continue to focus on making the property journey as simple and as smooth as possible by increasing transparency, efficiency, and mobility in the property market. Now let’s move on to page number seven for a look at the most recent market share data. Hemnet continues to be the leading choice for Swedish home sellers. Based on actual data from SCB, the statistics bureau in Sweden, 89% of all property sales in 2024 were advertised on Hemnet. This data point is not only important because it confirms our strength as a platform, but because we know the value it creates for everyone who buys and sells a home to be able to meet in one place. It is precisely the combination of our significant reach and the broad up-to-date housing supply that makes it possible.

When more people see your home, the chances of getting the best possible final price increases while you get the security that the deal is done on a fair market value. The 2024 numbers are in line with Hemnet’s share for the past six years, implying that Hemnet continues to be the go-to place for property buyers and sellers in Sweden. Now let’s continue on this track and turn to page 8 for some additional market data. During April and May, Kantar Media, a leading well-established media research and data analytics company in Sweden, conducted a large survey where more than 1,500 people were asked which property platform they would use if they were to buy and sell a property in Sweden today. As you can see here on the slide, roughly 83% of buyers and 87% of sellers stated that Hemnet would be their first choice today.

Hemnet was also considered by far the most user-friendly platform. This market data together with the 2024 data from SCB further strengthen us in our review that we are by far the number one property portal in Sweden. Now let’s move on to product news and we’ll start with Hemnet Max on page number nine. As you know, we launched Hemnet Max on the 1st of April this year, which means that the product has now been live for roughly a quarter. Hemnet Max includes a number of features that make it stand out compared to our other offerings, including top search placement, larger share of voice exposure on Hemnet’s landing page, and targeted email sendouts for prospective buyers. The initial data from Hemnet Max listings are showing very impressive results.

Comparing Hemnet Max listings to Hemnet Premium listings in Stockholm during April and May, we see that Max listings generated more listing visits, higher bidding premiums, and more saved searches. This clearly shows the strong value that the product creates for sellers and agents. Hemnet Max penetration remains at low levels, but we have seen a positive impact from Hemnet Max on our ARPL driven by the underlying mix effects. Going forward, we will continue to work with the Hemnet Max product and we look forward to it being an important growth driver for Hemnet in the coming quarters and years. Now let’s move on to slide 10 to go through a bit more about the investments that we made into our product proposition.

In addition to launching Hemnet Max in the quarter, our teams have worked on a number of exciting features to further enhance the user experience and value for our users. The new features that are either already live or soon to be released include a personalized discovery feed for logged-in users, curated listing collections, enhanced social sharing, and real-time push notifications for saved searches. A lot of these features have been highly sought after by our users and we’re very happy to put them in place. With that, I will hand over to Anders for a financial update starting with page 11. Anders, please take the stage.

Anders Janov, Chief Financial Officer, Hemnet Group AB: Thank you, Jonas. Let’s turn to page 12 and the financial summary. Let me begin with an overview of the second quarter of 2025. Net sales for the quarter amounted to SEK 484 million, reflecting a 90% year-on-year increase. This growth was mainly driven by the 35% increase in ARPL. The ARPL growth again was supported by the continued strong demand for our value-added services for sellers, including Hemnet Premium and the newly launched Hemnet Max. Although published listings volumes decreased by 9% compared to the same period last year, we were able to more than offset this by the higher monetization per listing. This underlines the value our platform delivers to home sellers also in a more challenging housing market.

Another noteworthy point is the average listing time on a rolling 12-month basis increased from 42 days in Q2 2024 to 47 days in Q1 2025 and now 48 days in Q2 2025. The year-on-year effect of the increased listing time is positive SEK 2 million in the revenue. The sequential effect of the one additional day from Q1 to Q2 is negative SEK 2 million in revenue for the quarter. It’s important to keep in mind that as the average listing days increase, the impact of the revenue shifting between quarters becomes more pronounced. Therefore, if there is a positive effect in Q2, all else equal, we should expect a corresponding negative effect in Q3 since June is typically a lower volume month, while September is higher. To smooth out seasonality effects, we recommend tracking ARPL growth on a rolling 12-month basis as shown in this presentation.

Turning to profitability, EBITDA came in at SEK 261 million, representing a 21% increase year-over-year. We will explore the EBITDA development in more detail later on. The EBITDA margin improved to 54%, up 0.6 percentage points from Q2 last year, driven by the strong top-line growth and operating leverage. Additionally, while commissions and compensation to real estate agents increased in absolute terms, they declined as a percentage of property seller revenue in the second quarter. Even as we continue to see higher recommendation rates and improved loss conversion, the effective commission rate decreased from 30.7% in Q2 to 30.1% in Q2 2025, partly explained by the fixed admin fee of SEK 600. We continue to uphold a strong financial position. Leverage ended the quarter at 0.6 LTM, down slightly from 0.7 in Q2 last year.

Free cash flow over the past 12 months reached SEK 775 million, a 34% increase, underscoring both the scalability of the business model and our strong cash generation capabilities. The reduction in leverage is particularly encouraging given our continued active execution of the capital allocation strategy. Notably, our share buyback program was expanded from SEK 450 million to SEK 600 million following the mandate approved at this year’s AGM. At first glance, the headcount increase of 13 may stand out. However, it’s important to consider technical nuance that helps explain the employee numbers in relation to the personnel costs. For example, there were a higher number of employees on parental leave during Q2 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. In addition, several new hires joined mid-quarter, meaning the full cost impact will be more visible later this year.

Beyond the replacement hiring across the organization, there has also been a modest expansion within product and tech departments. With that overview, let’s turn to other revenues by segment to take a closer look at the Q2 figures. Now moving into slide 13, which breaks down the revenues, main driver of course, once again the B2C segment. On the B2B side, the picture is more mixed. Revenue from real estate agents grew by 4% and property developers contributed with SEK 13 million, up 7% year on year. These increases reflect continued engagement from corporate developers and a modest rebound in new development listings. However, advertising revenues from other advertisers declined by 10% to SEK 16 million, reflecting a weaker display advertising market. This is driven by broader macroeconomic pressures as advertising budgets shrink across the market. Overall, an uplift in the B2B segment versus Q1, which is positive of course.

Again, the strong momentum in our seller revenues more than compensated for these headwinds, allowing us to continue delivering strong growth overall. With that, let’s move to the EBITDA bridge to dive deeper into the Q2 figures. We have already covered what has driven the top line, so let’s go through the costs. On slide 14 we show the year on year development of EBITDA. Agent compensation increased in absolute terms, but grew less than seller revenue, meaning the commission rate declined somewhat, which positively contributed to the margin expansion. Looking at other costs, expenses were higher than last year, driven by increased marketing spend, some investments around the launch, Hemnet Max, of course, but more importantly external brand building activities in Q2 in the second quarter and increased tactical digital marketing. Personnel expenses increased due to wage inflation and the larger headcount.

However, some timing effects again relating to the new hires has a dampening effect on the total personnel cost this quarter and the other cost category remained flat. Overall, our strong revenue growth combined with disciplined cost control allowed us to expand both EBITDA in absolute terms and our margin, once again demonstrating the leverage in our business model. In total, this adds up to the absolute EBITDA growth of SEK 45 million. Moving on to page 15 and some spotlight on the cash flow. Starting on the left hand side, our rolling 12 month free cash flow continued to trend upward and reached SEK 775 million. Cash conversion remains high, supporting both reinvestments and capital returns to shareholders. In the middle, you’ll see the development of the share buybacks. During the second quarter, we repurchased shares worth approximately SEK 140 million.

This is part of the SEK 600 million mandate approved in May and reflects our commitment to deliver shareholder value. Finally, on the right, our net debt stood at SEK 445 million, corresponding to 0.6, well below our target. This stable capital structure gives us flexibility to continue executing on our priorities while maintaining attractive returns. A summary for me. We delivered a strong second quarter with top line growth, margin expansion and continued robust cash generation, all while investing in our long term growth and returning capital to shareholders. With that, I want to hand over to Jonas for a summary on page 16.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group AB: Thank you, Anders. Let’s move on to the summary on Slide 16. To summarize today’s session and the second quarter of 2025, we delivered a strong and solid financial performance in Q2 with continued revenue growth and margin expansion despite the softer property market and lower listing volumes. We confirm and cement our number one position in the market. Nine out of ten properties sold in 2024 and Hemnet is in a fantastic position. We’re excited about the future with Hemnet Max, and the product has been showing strong value proposition and product performance in its early days. We have conducted targeted investments in our product development and marketing during the quarter, further strengthening our position, and we will continue to build on this with focus to deliver even more value to agents, sellers, and buyers. With that, that was all from a presentation perspective.

We’ll open up for Q and A.

Conference Operator: If you wish to ask a question, please dial key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. Next question comes from Georg Atling from Pareto Securities. Please go ahead.

Good morning guys. I have a couple of questions starting with Hemnet Max. As you said, good indirect effect on the ARPL through premium penetration increase, but quite low in itself. I’m just wondering how you plan to increase that Max penetration going forward.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group AB: Good morning Georg. When it comes to Hemnet Max, I think you’re absolutely right. We’re very satisfied and happy with initial results that the product has performed when it comes to Hemnet Max, and we’ve said this before, Hemnet Max is an important growth driver for the future and something that should help us not only in 2025 and the second half of 2025, but also moving into 2026, 2027, and 2028. I think from our perspective it’s a lot about the go-to-market dynamics. We continue to educate the agents around the strong proposition, help them to understand when they should use Hemnet Max, help them to understand, build the rhetorics and the narrative and the pitch for the agents. A large share of sort of driving further Max penetration will be nitty gritty go-to-market details, and that’s sort of a main driver.

Okay, we’ve seen here in July that you increase premium prices but not Max. Maybe also close the discount that the premium has to Max. Also, on that, are you ruling out making any changes to what’s included in the premium package to make the Max package more attractive in comparison?

I think if you look at it, there’s a number of different levers, and the relative price between the various tiers in our slate or in our sort of full product proposition is definitely one thing. That’s just one dimension that we will look at, and there are other opportunities as well. I think you point out one thing, which is around the various features that are included in the various packages. It’s still very early days for Hemnet Max, and it’s still very early days for Hemnet having four different tiers in our full proposition. I think that’s something that we will continue to work on, something that we always will strive to optimize. Not ruling out anything when it comes to the specific features, but we look at all various levers that we do have.

That’s very clear. Second question on the pre-market. This has obviously been a topic of discussion that you’re lagging behind a bit in the pre-market, and you touched upon it in the call. I’m just wondering if you have a strategy panned out for closing that gap in the pre-market space.

I think when it comes to the pre-market, Georg, I think you know we mentioned a few of those data points and the highlights in the presentation. Parts of the pre-market are very attractive for us. That’s the upcoming listings and that’s something that we are now continuing to look into and drive product development. I think that’s an area that we are looking into, the pre-market, given the circumstances and given the market dynamics that we currently see in the market with all-time high supply, long lead times, and also the more structural fact that most sellers need to sell before they buy. I think the pre-market has become more important. That’s something that we are looking into as we move ahead.

Perfect. Just final question from me now, with the longer lead times as you allude to and also the very, very high inventory currently, what’s your view on this impact on the mix? Has it been positive or negative for the mix to more expensive packages or neutral?

I think if you look at the trend, and this trend, as we also showed in the presentation, has been going on for quite some time. I think if you look at Premium and now also Hemnet Max, obviously it has a feature with renewals. I think the market circumstances and the market dynamics have been a driver of the continued premium conversion that we’ve seen. That product is very strong with the renewal feature in the market that we’ve had. You should also keep in mind, Georg, that if we look at the history and the past when it comes to Hemnet Max and Hemnet Premium, those products have been growing in penetration since we launched them in 2019 and 2020.

That has been in a quick market, that has been in a slow market, that has been in a warm market, and that has been in a cold market. To go back to your question, I think the premium conversion has benefited from the market circumstances.

That’s very helpful. Thank you very much. That’s all out.

Thank you, Garrett.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Ed Young from MS. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Two questions, please. The first on the July listings weakness. You’ve obviously talked about some of the factors that have gone into it. What’s your best diagnosis for how to think about Q3? I guess what I’m saying is, is it fair to say you won’t really know how much that’s simply been delayed slightly until September, or do you expect there to be some of the kind of factors that would affect the near term in Q3 on the listing side? The second is product. Thank you for the summary of some of the innovation you’re doing. I’m just wondering how many of those features or how much of the product development there requires sign in, and what rate are you up to for signed in users and perhaps more generally for app versus browser now. Thank you.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group AB: Thanks, Ed. When it comes to the Q3 volumes and how much is sort of a delay effect, I think we don’t know. It’s moving into July. July is a soft and a cold period in time. I think what we hear anecdotally when speaking to the agents is that they’re expecting to see an uplift on the other side of the summer. At this point in time we don’t know when it comes to the product development. Your second question, there’s a lot of interesting things happening there in terms of both how much is app and how much is sign in. Those are figures that we’re not disclosing, however, important dimensions that we continuously work on and are driving.

Okay, thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from William Packer from BNPP Exane. Please go ahead.

Hi there.

Thanks for taking my questions. Two from me, please. Firstly, thanks for the market share data you shared. We also had an update from Booli this morning where rather than analyzing 2024, they analyzed Q2. They argued market inventory was actually up 2% in Q2 2025 versus Hemnet down 10%, perhaps reflecting potential tensions with vendors and agents. Do you recognize that data from Booli or do you disagree with their methodology? Any color would help us. Thank you. Secondly, everyone’s aware the shares have been weak due to a load of different factors. Competitive pressure, investment requirements, regulatory oversight, etc. Jonas, you’ve now been CEO, but I don’t think you’ve necessarily come risk specific. 15% to 20% revenue growth and 55% margins. Is that the right frame of reference for us for 2026 and beyond? Just in the context of where consensus expectations are amid all that noise.

Thank you.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group AB: William, can you just repeat the second part of the last question? It was a bit difficult. You dropped out. I couldn’t really hear it. Sorry.

Sure, yeah.

Apologies.

This morning we had an update from Bonayo where they argued that for Q2 2025, total market inventory was up 2%. They outperformed that. They said the market was up 2% whilst Hemnet was down 10%. I just wanted to check whether you recognize that data in terms of market share implications for listings or whether you perhaps disagree with their methodology or maybe you haven’t seen the analysis.

Thank you.

On the first one, when it comes to the Bonillo, I have not seen it, but if they’re referring to total inventory, I think that’s a different question. What we have when we look at our volumes, as you know, William, the listing volumes are basically new listings and that’s down 9% during the second quarter. If we would look at the total inventory and total supply, that’s a completely different question. It’s a bit difficult to neither agree or disagree with that. I think when it comes to your second question, that was a bit difficult to hear, but I’ll try to answer it and then just guide me. When it comes to this quarter and the growth that we see being 19.4% driven by a very strong ARPL development of 34.7%. Combining that with the lower listing volumes, I think that’s a very strong quarter.

We have an ambition, as you know, that we should continue to grow with 15% to 20% per year. That’s our financial guidance and an EBITDA margin of 55%. I think with the margin expansion and the operational leverage that we see in Q2, that’s a very strong indication that we’re moving in the right direction. Please help me, William, if that was not the answer you were looking for.

Yes. Just to come back on the first part, Bono’s update is new listings. They’re saying the market is up 2%, Bonneo is up 3%, and Hemnet is down 9%. They’re arguing that you’re underperforming the market. I was just interested as to perhaps the methodological issue or whether you agreed with that assessment of the market. In terms of the other question, I think you covered it. You’re committed to the long-term guidance, despite the noise. That’s very helpful.

I think that the overall market would grow with 2%. We would not agree. We would disagree with that. That’s not at all what we’ve seen when we look at our internal numbers.

Very helpful.

Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Thomas Nielsen from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much for taking my question. We saw a 14% drop in listings in May and 16% in June. Are these purely seasonal fluctuations, or is Hemnet observing some shift in market share from competitors or changes in seller behavior that could be more structural?

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group AB: Thank you. When it comes to the May and the June listing volumes, I think it’s driven by a number of different factors. We’ve seen the macroeconomic uncertainty impacting the overall situation in the Swedish property market. I think in the past we’ve always seen concern that in early June listing volumes come down quite dramatically. That’s just a very natural seasonality that you do want to sell before sort of Sweden moves into full vacation mode. That has been true that the listings come down in early June when the average listing time has been 25 to 30 days. As Anders also pointed out in the presentation, average listing time, or on a rolling 12 months basis now is 48 days. Quite substantial expansion there. We have a very clear hypothesis that is impacting the market. That’s why we saw the volumes coming down mid May to larger extent.

I think that’s the main reasons. The overall market is softer rather than that we would see any sort of indications that we have a market share drop.

Thank you very much. The average listing time is now 48 days, you said.

Yeah, on a rolling 12 months basis.

Okay, thank you very much.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Giles Thorne from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group AB: Sorry, Giles, are you there?

Anders Janov, Chief Financial Officer, Hemnet Group AB: Giles, maybe you can try logging in again and we’ll take the next.

For the past 30 seconds, I was on mute.

Giles, now we can hear you.

Okay, perfect. My apologies. You’d just think I’d be better at this by now.

It was.

Two questions, please. Both are deliberately provocative, both for Jonas. The first one is I not make Hemnet Max free from here. Secondly, agent compensation is your best allocated to remunerating agents or is there a better use for that capital going forward?

Thanks.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group AB: Could you repeat the first question, Giles? It’s a bit difficult to hear you.

It was a question. Why not make fast or, in English, free?

Give it away for free. Okay, thanks, Giles. On the first question, looking at Boss, from my perspective and from our perspective, it is a fantastic and very strong product that is bringing fantastic value to the actual seller with strong, rich, and very good exposure. From our perspective, the way we view it is that right now that’s definitely motivating a value that is important and a good way for Hemnet to monetize on that product. With that said, we always look at the full proposition that we do have. We always look at the four different tiers that we do have and try to optimize based on the market circumstances that we do see. That’s the first one.

On the second one, when it comes to agent compensation, looking at the compensation model that we do have in place, as you know and as you’ve seen, because you’ve been following us for quite a while, it’s been a fantastic tool from an operational level. If you look at the result of the most recent comp model, it has truly sparked the penetration of plus and premium product. It is something that is a good investment. It creates a strong relationship with the agents, something that from an overall level we’re very happy with to have in place and an important part of our business model.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jaz.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Nicola Kalinoski from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Just a few questions from my end. The first one is just on listing volumes. Obviously, volumes have been a bit weak in May and June and then slightly in July due to tough comps. Is it reasonable to think here that there needs to be a destocking of listings, if you will, given the high supply and that this is what we’re seeing now before we see some form of a return to a more normal listing level of somewhere around 185,000 to 190,000 ads? You know what I mean?

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group AB: Thank you, Nicola. When it comes to the listing volumes, just looking at the fact we’re at the all-time high levels in terms of supply, it has been growing for quite a while. It is still growing. I think that the stocking would be very helpful for the market. That would increase the pace or reduce average sales time. The problem is that the most natural way to de-stock would be that the number of transactions actually would go up. That is something that the entire real estate agent industry is waiting for. Everyone thought that 2025 would pick up. It’s okay. The 2025 transaction volumes are quite normal. You would need to see an acceleration and there’s a demand for that to happen. More transactions would be the natural way of de-stocking.

Yeah. I suppose some of the data we’re seeing from Svensk Mäklarstatistik on the topic of the number of actual transactions closing is going up, but it’s not back to a normal level. Right? Is that what you gentlemen are also saying?

Yeah, I think that’s absolutely correct, especially given the high level of supply. You would need to see it pick up and probably be sort of ahead of normal levels to see that destocking happening. I think also there is a lot of old supply in the market, and it’s a bit of a question mark on some of the listings, both on the pre-market or the so-called pre-market and in the on-sale segment, whether it’s actually for sale or not. One thing that is so clear to me is that we have one KPI that we look at, which is the average number of properties that an agent is running in parallel. That used to be 3.5, 4. Now it’s up to 8 and 9. I think it’s not helpful for the entire industry. This is actually something that’s quite bad for the Swedish property market.

That’s great color, wonderful. Maybe on the same topic, I suppose it’s somewhat likely that the Swedish government now with the proposition of some eased mortgage rules and LTV requirements could spur transaction volumes. Is that something that could be seen? I suppose an easier way to purchase homes, maybe the smaller ones, is something that could spur transaction activity and maybe trigger a destocking, do you reckon?

I think if you look at it, Nicola, and you look at the Hemnet listing volumes and if we run the analysis, we see that the strongest correlation with listing volumes is actually towards interest rates. That is a very clear sort of correlation between listing volumes and interest rates. Obviously, during the quarter we’ve had an additional decline when it comes to the interest rates. I’m not going to speculate about the sort of the forecast or the trajectory ahead, but I think that decline in interest rate is positive for the underlying market and something that is very helpful when it comes to the more regulatory changes that you referred to. Those are a bit sort of.

Obviously, we don’t have historical data and haven’t seen this in the past, but in principle and by design, it makes sense and resonates well with us that this should have a positive effect. The actual sort of, the actual impact that it would have, it’s a bit difficult for us to speculate about. In general, it should be on the positive side.

Yeah, I respect that and I appreciate the reflections. Secondly, I think when we look at average listing durations on Boley, it’s clear that they have a significantly higher average listing duration than you do. Arguably because there’s a lot of stale inventory on Boley. Do you see any difference between your own pre-market listing durations and the so-called normal listings and their durations?

I think I don’t really exactly know the numbers that you’re referring to boldly, but sort of in general when it comes to our Upcoming category, or which is Kommande in Swedish, we obviously sort of, you know, that’s a much shorter period in time. You typically have it on Upcoming or Kommande for a quite short period before you sort of enter into the on sale segment. What we do see is that Kommande or Upcoming has grown in importance, is also growing as share of the total market for us, which is something that is helpful. We also saw that product that has been on Kommande at Hemnet do perform slightly better than listings that go directly into the on sale segment.

Yep, super helpful. Finally, a question on B2B. It seemed to have been a bit ignored, I guess, due to maybe a cyclical downturn here. You know, it’s safe to say that you do have one of the most well-known brands in Sweden and the wide-reaching platform. Don’t you have much more left to do here on the B2B side as well? Could you perhaps elaborate on the monetization and commercialization potential that exists in B2B aside from maybe a cyclical recovery, please.

I think B2B represents a fantastic opportunity. I think if you look at the performance on B2B in the past, per your point, it’s been sort of in the lower end of the cycle, I think in Q2 now. Very happy to say that, first of all, we are improving quite significantly compared to Q1. It is the first quarter where B2B is actually not declining, so a bit of a trend shift. Even though it’s flat in terms of B2B, I think there’s a lot of opportunities. Parts of it are just driven by execution. I think we have opportunities in executing from an internal perspective to quite a large extent, and that should help to offset the cyclicality going forward. Secondly, I think there’s a lot more product development that could be done in this space.

I mean, per your point, and I think that was you referring to Nicola. If you look at Hemnet, it’s the third largest media platform in Sweden with a fantastic reach. More than 2 million unique visitors coming to us on a weekly basis. I think that’s a traffic boost in that sense. Secondly, which is more important, is that it’s also high quality traffic because we sit pretty far down in the funnel around a property transaction. I think we both have the quantity in terms of traffic, but we also have the quality being close to an actual property transaction. I think that data is a currency and an asset that we need to leverage and should monetize to a larger extent going forward.

That’s great. Appreciate the insights. I think that’s all for me. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Nicola.

Conference Operator: As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial key five on your telephone keypad. Next question comes from William Packer from BNPP Exane. Please go ahead.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group AB: Are you there?

Hi, sorry, there’s just a very quick follow-up. Do you mind just summarizing the messaging on listing trends in July to date and how they’ve developed, just to make sure that I digest the message appropriately? Thank you.

Anders Janov, Chief Financial Officer, Hemnet Group AB: Thank you for the question again. I mean, we see the same thing that everyone else is, that the trend from May and June continues into July. We do the same analysis on why that is, that everyone is waiting to come back after the vacation and summer holidays to do the transaction. Nothing in July changes our opinion on what’s happening on the housing market.

Thanks.

Conference Operator: There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group AB: Thank you to everyone for tuning in and for joining the call today and for a lot of great questions coming in to us. With that, we’ll try to conclude today’s session and we wish you a great, great weekend coming up and have a great day. Thanks.

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