Earnings call transcript: Hemnet Q2 2025 sees strong sales, stock rises

Hemnet Group AB, with a market capitalization of 14.87 million USD, reported robust financial performance for the second quarter of 2025, with net sales increasing by 19.4% year-over-year to 484 million SEK. The company’s EBITDA rose by 20.7%, achieving a margin of 54%. Following the earnings announcement, Hemnet’s stock price increased by 2.84%, reflecting investor confidence in the company’s strategic initiatives and market position. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company maintains impressive gross profit margins, though it currently trades at elevated valuation multiples.

Key Takeaways

• Hemnet’s net sales grew by 19.4% year-over-year, reaching 484 million SEK.
• EBITDA increased by 20.7%, with a margin of 54%.
• Average Revenue Per Listing (ARPU) saw a significant increase of 34.7%.
• The stock price rose by 2.84% post-earnings announcement.
• Hemnet Max, a new product offering, showed promising initial results.

Company Performance

Hemnet Group AB demonstrated a strong performance in Q2 2025, driven by strategic product launches and market dominance. Despite a challenging Swedish property market characterized by high supply and macroeconomic uncertainty, Hemnet maintained its leadership position with 89% market share in property listings. The company continues to be the preferred choice for both buyers and sellers. With a beta of -0.43, Hemnet shows defensive characteristics against market volatility. InvestingPro data reveals the company operates with a moderate level of debt, with a total debt to total capital ratio of 0.19, suggesting prudent financial management. Discover 10+ additional exclusive insights and metrics with InvestingPro’s comprehensive analysis.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: 484 million SEK (+19.4% YoY)
• EBITDA: 261 million SEK (+20.7% YoY)
• EBITDA Margin: 54% (+0.6 percentage points)
• Free Cash Flow (LTM): 775 million SEK (+34%)

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, Hemnet’s stock price increased by 2.84%, closing at 297.2 SEK. This rise reflects positive investor sentiment towards the company’s financial health and strategic direction. The stock’s performance is notable given the broader market volatility and Hemnet’s position within its 52-week range.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking forward, Hemnet is committed to achieving 15-20% annual revenue growth and maintaining an EBITDA margin target of 55%. The company aims to increase the penetration of Hemnet Max, optimize product offerings, and enhance B2B monetization opportunities. Based on InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, the stock appears to be trading above its intrinsic value. The company maintains a Financial Health Score of 2.01, rated as ’FAIR’ by InvestingPro’s comprehensive evaluation system. For detailed valuation analysis and growth prospects, access the full Pro Research Report, available exclusively to InvestingPro subscribers.

Executive Commentary

"We delivered a strong and solid performance in the second quarter with continued growth despite the softer underlying property market," stated Jonas Gustafsson, CEO. He further emphasized, "The increased profitability is driven by strong sales growth paired with operating leverage in our underlying business."

Risks and Challenges

• Macroeconomic uncertainty in the Swedish property market could impact future growth.
• Regulatory changes in mortgage rules may affect market dynamics.
• Prolonged listing times and decreased published listings present operational challenges.

Hemnet’s strategic initiatives and market leadership position it well to navigate these challenges, with a focus on innovation and customer engagement.

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

Conference Moderator: Welcome to HEMNET’s Q2 twenty twenty five Conference Call. Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers. Please go ahead.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to this twenty twenty five q two release call for Hemnet Group. 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, Ludwig 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 during the second quarter.

Thereafter, Anders Jarnooth will cover the financial details before I will come back in the end to wrap this midyear 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. So 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 ARPU growth 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 Arco development. Number of published listings were down with 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, twenty twenty four q two was a very strong quarter boosted by the introduction of lower interest rates and downward interest rates trajectory.

EBITDA grew by 20.7% leading to an EBITDA margin of 54%, up by o point six percentage points compared to the same period last year. The increased profitability is driven by strong sales growth paired with operating leverage in our our underlying business. During the quarter, we also launched Hemet Max on first April, and we’re quite pleased with the launch and the impact it has had on the overall conversion levels to higher packages. I will come back to Hemet 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 484,000,000, 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 261,000,000. The EBITDA margin amounted to 45 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 and 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 Hamlet Premium. The conversion rate to higher tier packages increased and was supported by the launch of Hemnet Max on first April. Hemnet Max account 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 let’s 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 q two and amounted to 50,500. 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 rates cuts in May and June drove a accelerated listing activity. The market also shifted into a slower pace early than usual ahead of the summer this year as both sellers and agents appeared 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 premarket that is suffering from the same dynamics.

A large share of the so called premarket supply is old supply and does not move. Based on our analysis, we see that roughly 50% of the premarket inventory is older than one hundred and eighty days. And close to 70% of the so called premarket is older than sixty days. Given that very few transactions actually take place in the premarket, 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, Hemlet 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 SCD, the statistic bureau in Sweden, 89% of all property sales in 2024 were advertised on Hamnet. 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 let’s continue on this track and turn to page eight 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 when 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 the 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 view 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 Hamnet Max on page number nine. So as you know, we launched Hamnet Max on first April this year, which means that the product has now been live for roughly a quarter.

Hemnet Max includes a number of features that makes it stand out compared to our or 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 listing 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. Hemlik Max penetration remains at low levels, but we have seen a positive impact from Hemlik Max on our ARPO driven by the underlying mix effects.

Going forward, we will continue to work with the Hemex Max product, and we look forward to it being an important growth driver for Hemex 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 includes 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 to put them in place.

And with that, I will hand over to to Anders for a financial update starting with page 11. Anders, please take the stage.

Anders Janov, Chief Financial Officer, Hemnet Group: Thank you, Jonas, and let’s turn to page 12 and the financial summary. Let me begin with an overview of the second quarter of twenty twenty five. Net sales for the quarter amounted to SEK $484,000,000, reflecting a 90% year on year increase. This growth was mainly driven by the 35% increase in ARPU. The ARPU growth, again, was supported by the continued strong demand for our value added services for sellers, including HEMLET plus premium and the newly launched HEMLET 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 of our platform delivers to home sellers also in a more challenging housing market. Another noteworthy point is the average listing time on a rolling twelve month basis increased from forty two days in q two twenty four to forty seven days in q one twenty five and now forty eight days in q two twenty twenty five. The year on year effect of the increased listing time is positive 2,000,000 in the revenue. The sequential effect of the one additional day from q one to q two is negative 2,000,000 in revenue for the quarter.

It’s important to keep in mind that the average 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 the 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 ARPU growth on a rolling twelve month basis as shown in this presentation. Turning to profitability, EBITDA came in at 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. So even if so even as we continue to see higher recommendation rates and improved loss conversion, the effective commission rate decreased from 30.7% in q two to 30.1 in q two twenty twenty five, 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 x in Q2 last year.

Free cash flow over the past twelve months reached $775,000,000, 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 $450,000,000 to SEK 600 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 a technique 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 q two twenty five compared to the same period in ’24. In addition, several new hires joined mid quarter, meaning the full cost impact would be more visible later this year. Beyond the replacement hiring across the organization, there’s 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, B2C segment. On the B2B side, the picture is more mixed. Revenue from real estate agents grew by 4% and property developers contributed to with 13,000,000, up 7% year on year. These increases reflect continued engagement from property developers and a modest rebound in modest rebound in new development listings. However, advertising revenues from other advertisers declined by 10% to to 16,000,000, reflecting a weaker display advertising market.

This is driven by broader macroeconomic pressures as advertising budgets budgets shrink across the market. But overall, an uplift in the B2B segment versus Q1, which is positive, of course. And again, the strong momentum in our salary 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, which grew less than salary 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 of the Hamlet Max, of course, but more importantly, external brand building activities in q two in the second quarter and increased tactical digital marketing. Personal 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 personal 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 45,000,000. Moving on to Page 15 and some spotlight on the cash flow. Starting on the left hand side, our rolling twelve month free cash flow continued to trend upward and reached SEK775 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 140,000,000. This is part of the 600,000,000 mandate approved in May and reflects our commitment to deliver shareholder value. And finally, on the right, our net debt stood at $445,000,000 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. So a summary from 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: Thank you, Anders. And let’s move on to the summary on Slide 16. And to summarize today’s session and the second quarter of twenty twenty five, we delivered a strong and solid financial performance in q two 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 10 properties sold in 2024, and Hemnet is 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. So we’ll open up for q and a.

Conference Moderator: Next question comes from Georg Atling from Pareto Securities. Please go ahead.

Georg Atling, Analyst, Pareto Securities: Good morning, guys. I have a couple of questions, starting with Hemet Max. So as you said, good indirect effect on the ARPU through premium penetration increase, but quite low in itself. So I’m just wondering how you plan to increase that max penetration going forward.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: Good morning, Georg. So when it comes to Hamlet Max, I think you’re absolutely right. We have we’re very satisfied and happy with initial results that the product has performed. When it comes to to Hamlet Max, we’ve said this before, Hamlet Max is an important growth driver for the future and something that should help us not only in 2025 and the second half of twenty twenty five, but also moving into ’26, ’27, and ’28. I think from from our perspective, it’s a lot about the go to market dynamics.

So continue to educate the the agents around the strong proposition, help them to understand when they should use HemetMax, help them to understand and build the rhetorics and the narrative and the pitch for the agents. So a large share of sort of driving driving further max penetration will be nitty gritty go to market details, and and that’s sort of a main driver.

Georg Atling, Analyst, Pareto Securities: Okay. But we’ve seen here in July that you increased premium prices, but not max. So maybe also close the discount that premium has to max. And also on on that, are you are you ruling out making any changes to what’s included in the premium package to to make the max package more attractive in comparison?

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: I think if you look at there’s a number of different levers, and the relative price between the various tiers in our slate that were in our sort of full product proposition is definitely one thing. That’s just one dimension that we will look at. And the the sort of there are other opportunities as well, and I think you you sort of point out one thing, which is around sort of the various features that are included in in the various packages. It’s still very early days for for Macs, and it’s still very early days for Hamnet having four different tiers in our full proposition. So I think sort of that’s something that we will continue to to work on, something that we always will strive to optimize.

So not ruling out anything when it comes to the specific features, but we’ll look at all various levers that we do have.

Georg Atling, Analyst, Pareto Securities: That’s very clear. Second question on the premarket. So this has obviously been a topic of discussion that you’re lagging behind a bit boldly in the premarket. And you touched upon it in the call, but I’m just wondering if you have a strategy panned out for closing that gap in the premarket space.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: I think when it comes to to the premarket, Georg, I think you know? And we we we mentioned a few of the sort of data points and the highlights in the presentation. Parts of the pre market is very attractive for us. That’s the upcoming listings, that’s something that we are now continue to to look into and drive product development. So I think that’s an area that we are looking into.

The pre market, given the circumstances and given the market dynamics that that we we currently see in the market with all time high supply, long lead times, and also the sort of more more structural fact that most settlers need to sell before they buy, I think the premarket has become more important. So that’s something that we are looking into when we move ahead.

Georg Atling, Analyst, Pareto Securities: Perfect. Just final question from from me now with the with the longer lead times, as you alluded 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 for the mix to more expensive packages or neutral?

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: I think I think if you look at the trend and this trend, as we also shown in the presentation, has been going on for for quite some time. I think, you know, if you look at premium and now also max, obviously, has a feature with renewals. I think the market circumstances and the market dynamics has 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. But you should also keep in mind, you know, that if we look at if we look at the history and the past when it comes to Hamlet Plus and Hamlet Premium, those product has been growing in penetration since we launched them 2019 and 2020.

That has been in a quick market. That has been in the slow market. That has been in the warm market, and that has been in the cold market. But I think, to go back to your question, I think it’s the premium conversion have benefited from the markets market circumstances.

Georg Atling, Analyst, Pareto Securities: That’s very helpful. Thank you very much. That’s all I had.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: Thank you, Garrett.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Ed Young from Miz. Please go ahead.

Ed Young, Analyst, Mizuho: Good morning. Two questions, please. The first on the July listings weakness. You’ve obviously talked about some of the factors that have got into it. What’s your best diagnosis for how to think about Q3?

And 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? And 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: Yeah. Thanks, Ead. When it comes to when it comes to the q three volumes and how much is sort of, you know, a delay effect, I think we don’t know. It’s, you know, it’s moving into July. July is a soft and a cold period in time.

I think there’s 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. But at this point in time, we don’t know. When it comes to the product development and 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 that we continuously work on and and are driving.

Speaker 5: Okay. Thank you.

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

William Packer, Analyst, BNPP Exane: Hi there, Rohit. Thanks for taking my questions. Two from me, please. Firstly, thanks for the market share data you shared. We also had an update from Borneo this morning, where rather than analyzing 2024, they analyzed Q2.

They argued market inventory was actually up 2% in Q2 twenty twenty five versus Hemnet down 10%, perhaps reflecting potential tensions with vendors and agents. Do you recognize that data from BULE or do you disagree with their methodology? Any color would help us. Thank you. And then secondly, everyone’s aware of the shares have been weak to you on a load of different factors, competitive pressure, investment requirements, regulatory oversight, etcetera.

Jonas, you’ve now been CEO, but I don’t think you’ve necessarily come through a specific field now you’ve announced 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: So William, can you just repeat the sort of the second part of the last question? It’s a bit difficult. You dropped out. I couldn’t really hear it. Sorry.

William Packer, Analyst, BNPP Exane: Sure. Yes. Apologies. Bad line here. So this morning, we had an update from Beneo where they argued that for Q2 twenty twenty five, total market inventory was plus 2%.

They outperformed that. They said the market was plus 2%, while Hemnet was down 10%. And 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.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: So on the first one, when it comes to to the Bonneo data, I have not seen it. But if they’re sort of if they are referring to total inventory, I mean, I think that’s a different question. What we have sort of when we look at our volumes, as you know, William, the listing volumes are are basically new listings, and that’s down with 9% during the second quarter. If we would look at the total inventory and total supply, that’s a completely different question. So it’s it’s a bit difficult to to neither agree or or disagree with that.

And I think when it comes to to your second question, that was a bit difficult to hear, but I’ll I’ll try to to answer it and then just guide me. When it comes due to this quarter and the growth that we see being 19.4% driven by a very strong Arco development of 34.7%, combining that with a lower listing one. I think that’s a very strong quarter. We have a ambition, as you know, that that we should continue to grow with 15 to 20% per year. That’s our financial guidance.

And a EBITDA margin of 55%. And I think sort of with the with the margin expansion and the operational leverage that we see in q two, I think that’s sort of that’s a very strong indications that that we’re moving in the right direction. Please help me, William, if if that was not sort

Georg Atling, Analyst, Pareto Securities: of the Sure.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: The answer you were looking for.

Speaker 5: Yes. It’s just so so

William Packer, Analyst, BNPP Exane: just to come back on on the first part. So Boneo’s update is new listings. They’re saying the market is plus 2%, Boneo is plus 3%, and Hemnet is minus 9%. So 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.

And then 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. Yeah.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: I think that 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.

William Packer, Analyst, BNPP Exane: Very helpful. Thank you.

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

William Packer, Analyst, BNPP Exane: 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 Henness observing some shift in market share from competitors or changes in seller behavior that could be more structural? Thank you.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: When it comes to when it comes to the May and the June listing volumes, I think it it’s driven by a number of different factors. We’ve seen the macroeconomic uncertainty impacting the the overall situation in the Swedish property market. It’s I think in the past, we’ve always seen that in early June, listing volumes come down quite dramatically, and that’s just a, you know, a a very natural seasonality that you do wanna sell before sort of Sweden moves into full vacation mode. That has been true that the the listings come down in early June when the average listing time has been twenty five to thirty days. As Anders also pointed out in the presentation, average listing time on a rolling twelve month basis now is forty eight days, so quite substantial expansion there.

We have a very clear hypothesis that, you know, that is impacting the market, and that’s why we saw the volumes coming down mid May to to larger extent. So I think that that’s the the the main reasons. And the overall market is softer rather than than that we would see any sort of indications that we have a market share drop.

William Packer, Analyst, BNPP Exane: Okay. Thank you very much. And the average listing time is now forty eight days, you said?

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: Yes. On a rolling twelve months basis.

William Packer, Analyst, BNPP Exane: Okay. Thank you very much.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Giles Thorne from Jefferies.

Giles Thorne, Analyst, Jefferies: Sorry. Giles, are you there? Giles, maybe you can try logging in again, and we’ll take the next

Georg Atling, Analyst, Pareto Securities: Pushed out

Speaker 5: for the past thirty seconds on mute.

Giles Thorne, Analyst, Jefferies: Giles. Think can hear

Speaker 5: you. My apologies. You’d have thought I’d be better at this by now. So it was two questions, please. Both are deliberately provocative, both for Jonas.

The first one is, I not make BaaS free from here. And 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: Could you could you repeat the first question, Jas? It’s a bit difficult to to hear you. It

Speaker 5: was a question, why not make bats or bats in English free? Give it away for free.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: Okay. Thanks, Giles. So on the first question, I think looking at BOSS, I think from my perspective and from our perspective, it is a fantastic and a very strong product that is bringing a fantastic value to the actual seller with strong reach and very good exposure. And I think from our perspective, the way we view it is that right now, that’s definitely sort of motivating a value that is important and a good way for Hemnet to monetize on that product. With that said, we’ll 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. So that’s the first one. On the second one, when it comes to agent compensation, I think 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 a it’s been a fantastic tool from an operational level. And if you look at the result of the most recent comp model, it has truly sort of sparked the penetration of plus and premium product. So I think it is something that it’s it’s a good investment.

It creates a strong sort of relationship with the agents as to something that from a from an overall level that we’re very happy with to have in place and an important part of our business model.

Speaker 5: Thank you very much.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: Thank you, Jaz.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Nikola Kalanowski from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.

Nikola Kalanowski, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Yes, thanks. Just a few questions from my end. So the first one is just on listing volumes. Just obviously, 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, 190,000 ads, if you know what I mean?

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: I think thank you, Nicolas. When it comes to to the listing volume, I think I mean, 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 destocking sort of would be very helpful for the market that would sort of increase the pace or reduce average average sales time.

I think that the problem is that, you know, I think that the most natural way to destock would be that, you know, number of transactions actually would go up. And I think that is something that the entire real estate agent industry is waiting for. Everyone thought that 2025 would pick up, instead of and it’s okay. I think, the twenty twenty five transaction volumes are sort of, you know, quite sort of normal, but I think you would need to see an acceleration. And I think there’s a demand for that to happen, but I think more transaction would be the the the natural way of of of this stock.

Nikola Kalanowski, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Yep. And I suppose some of the data we’re seeing from Stansk and Atlas that is stake on the topic of the number of actual transactions closing, that is going up, but it’s not back to a normal level. Right? Is that what your gentlemen are also saying?

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: Yeah. I think yeah. That’s absolutely correct. And especially given the high level of supply, right, that you would need to to see it pick up and probably be sort of ahead of of normal levels to to see the the destocking happening. But I think also there’s, you know, there’s a lot of old supply in the market, and it’s it’s a bit sort of question mark on some of the listings both on the pre market and where the so called pre market and in the on sale segment, whether it’s actually for sale or not.

And I think one thing that is so clear to me is that we have one KPI that we look at, which is the the the average number of properties that an agent is is running in parallel. That used to be three and a half, four. Now it’s up to eight and nine. So I think it’s not helpful for the entire industry. This is actually something that’s quite bad for the Swedish property market.

Nikola Kalanowski, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: That’s great color. Wonderful. And maybe on the same topic, sorry. But I suppose it’s somewhat likely that the Swedish government now with the proposition of some eased mortgage rules and LTV requirements, will I suppose maybe spur transaction volumes. Is that something that could be seen?

I mean, I suppose an easier way to to purchase homes, maybe the smaller ones. Is that something that could spur transaction activity and maybe trigger a destocking, do you reckon?

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: I think if you look at it, Nicolas, and you look at the the HEMNET listing volumes, and if we run the analysis, we see that the strongest correlation with listing volumes is actually towards interest rates. So that’s a very clear sort of correlation between listing volumes and interest rates. And, obviously, during the quarter, we’ve had an additional decline when it comes to the interest rates. Then I’m not gonna speculate about the the sort of the forecast or the trajectory we have. But I think that decline in interest rate is positive for the underlying market and something that is very helpful.

Then when it comes to to the more regulatory changes that that you referred to. Those are a bit sort of you know, obviously, we don’t have historical data and haven’t seen this in the past. But in principle and by design, it it makes sense and resonates well with us that this should have a positive effect. But, you know, the the actual sort of the actual impact that it would have, it it’s a bit difficult for us to to speculate about. But in general, it should be on the positive side.

Nikola Kalanowski, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Yeah. I respect that, and I appreciate the reflections. Secondly, I think when we look at the average listing durations on Bully, it’s clear that they have a significantly higher average listing duration than you do, arguably because there’s a lot of sale inventory on Bully. Do you see any difference between your own premarket listing durations and the so called normal listings and their durations?

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: I think I don’t really exactly know the numbers that you’re referring to, BOLI. But sort of in general, when it comes to our upcoming category or which is common there in in in Swedish, we obviously set up you know, that’s a much shorter period in time. You typically have it on on upcoming or for a quite short period before you sort of enter into the on sales segment. What we do see is that Comande or upcoming has grown in important. It’s also growing a share of the total market for us, which is something that is helpful.

But we also see that, you know, product that has been on on common at Hemnet do perform slightly better than listings that go directly into the on sale segment.

Nikola Kalanowski, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Yep. Super helpful. And then finally, a question on b to b. It seemed to have been a bit ignored, guess, to maybe a cyclical downturn here. But 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? So could you perhaps elaborate on the monetization and commercialization potential that exists in b to b aside from maybe a cyclical recovery, please?

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: I think, yeah, b to b represents a fantastic opportunity. And I think if you look at the performance on build to build in the past, per your per your point, it’s been sort of in the lower end of the cycle. I think in q two now, very happy to say that, first of all, that we are, you know, improving quite significant significantly compared to q one. But, also, it is the first quarter where b to b is actually not declining. So a bit of sort of a a trend shift even though it’s flat.

In terms of of b to b, I think there’s there’s a lot of opportunities. Parts of it is just driven by execution. I think we have opportunities in in executing from from an internal perspective to quite large extent, and that should help to to offset the cyclicality going forward. Secondly, I think there’s a lot of more sort of product development that could be done in this space. I mean, per your point, and I think what that was you were referring to, Nicolas, if you look at Hamnet, right, it’s the third largest media platform in Sweden with a fantastic reach.

More than 2,000,000 unique visitors coming to us on a weekly basis. I think that’s a you know, it’s a traffic boost in that sense. Secondly, which is more important is that it’s also high high quality traffic because we sit pretty far down in the funnel around a property transaction. So 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 larger extent going forward.

Nikola Kalanowski, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Yep. That’s that’s great. Appreciate the the insights. I think that’s all for me. Thank you very much.

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: Thank you, Nikola.

Conference Moderator: Next question comes from William Packer from BNPP Exane. Please go ahead.

Giles Thorne, Analyst, Jefferies: Will, are you there?

William Packer, Analyst, BNPP Exane: Hi. Sorry there. 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: Well well, thanks for the question again. I mean, we see the same thing that everyone else is that the the trend from from May and June continuing to July. But we do the same analysis on why that that everyone is waiting to come back on the off of the vacation and summer holidays to do the transaction. So nothing in July changes our opinion on what’s happening on the on the housing market.

William Packer, Analyst, BNPP Exane: Thanks.

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

Jonas Gustafsson, Group CEO, Hemnet Group: Thank you to everyone for for tuning in and for joining the call today and for a lot of great questions coming in to us. And 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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