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REMAX Holdings reported its second-quarter earnings, revealing an EPS of $0.39, surpassing analyst expectations of $0.35 by 11.43%. The company’s revenue fell short at $72.8 million compared to the forecasted $73.68 million, marking a 1.19% miss. This mixed financial performance led to a 4.81% decline in the stock price, closing at $8.52, as investors weighed the earnings beat against the revenue shortfall. According to InvestingPro analysis, RMAX appears undervalued at current levels, with a robust gross profit margin of 74.45% and strong free cash flow yield.
Key Takeaways
- EPS exceeded expectations by 11.43%, highlighting profitability.
- Revenue missed forecasts by 1.19%, raising concerns.
- Stock price fell 4.81% post-earnings announcement.
- Global agent count reached a record 147,000.
- Launched innovative products, including AI-powered systems.
Company Performance
REMAX Holdings demonstrated robust profitability through an EPS beat, despite facing challenges in revenue generation. The company continues to leverage its strong global agent network and innovative product offerings to maintain its competitive edge. However, the slower recovery in U.S. home sales and external economic pressures have impacted revenue growth.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $72.8 million, slightly below forecasts.
- Earnings per share: $0.39, beating expectations.
- Adjusted EBITDA: $26.3 million, with a 36.1% margin.
- Selling, operating, and administrative expenses decreased by 2.8%.
Earnings vs. Forecast
REMAX Holdings’ EPS of $0.39 surpassed the forecast of $0.35, representing an 11.43% surprise. However, revenue fell short by 1.19%, coming in at $72.8 million against the expected $73.68 million, reflecting potential challenges in market conditions.
Market Reaction
The stock price dropped by 4.81% to $8.52 following the earnings release, as investors reacted to the revenue miss. This decline positions the stock closer to its 52-week low, indicating cautious sentiment amid broader market uncertainties.
Outlook & Guidance
REMAX Holdings maintained its full-year 2025 revenue guidance of $290-$296 million, with an expected agent count growth of up to 1.5%. The company is focusing on expanding its U.S. and Canadian agent networks and exploring opportunities in the mortgage business.
Executive Commentary
"We’re entering 2025 with solid momentum," stated Eric Carlson, CEO, emphasizing the company’s strategic initiatives and strong business model. Carey Callahan, CFO, added, "We continue to strategically evaluate every aspect of our business," highlighting a focus on efficiency and growth.
Risks and Challenges
- Slower recovery in U.S. existing home sales.
- Increased tariffs and inflationary pressures.
- High mortgage rates affecting consumer confidence.
- Revenue impact from the Aspire program.
- Slower than expected ramp-up of the REMAX Media Network.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts probed into the reduced guidance, citing concerns over the slower ramp-up of the REMAX Media Network and tempered broker fee outlook. The company addressed these by emphasizing positive recruitment results from the Aspire program and international agent count growth as key drivers for future performance.
Full transcript - Re Max Holding (RMAX) Q2 2025:
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the REMAX Holdings Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. My name is Tiffany, and I will be facilitating the audio portion of today’s call. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Joe Schwartz, Senior Vice President of Finance. Mr. Schwartz?
Joe Schwartz, Senior Vice President of Finance, REMAX Holdings: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to REMAX Holdings second quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call. Please visit the Investor Relations section of www.remaxholdings.com for all earnings related materials, including our standard earnings presentation and to access the live webcast and the replay of the call today. Our prepared remarks and answers to your questions on today’s call may contain forward looking statements. Forward looking statements include those related to agent count, franchise sales and open offices, financial measures and outlook, brand expansion, competition, technology, housing and mortgage market conditions, capital allocation, credit facility, dividends, share repurchases, litigation settlements, strategic and operational plans and business models.
Forward looking statements represent management’s current estimates. REMAX Holdings assumes no obligation to update any forward looking statements in the future. Forward looking statements address matters that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in forward looking statements. These are discussed in our second quarter twenty twenty five financial results press release and other SEC filings. Also, we will refer to certain non GAAP measures on today’s call.
Please see the definitions and reconciliations of non GAAP measures contained in our most recent quarterly financial results press release, which is available on our website. Joining me on our call today are Eric Carlson, our Chief Executive Officer and Carey Callahan, our Chief Financial Officer. With that, I’d like
Eric Carlson, Chief Executive Officer, REMAX Holdings: to turn the call over to them. Eric? Thank you, Joe, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning. We’re entering the 2025 with solid momentum. We ended Q2 with over 147,000 agents in our global network, an all time high.
We saw signs of stabilization in our U. S. Agent count and our profit and margin performance exceeded expectations once again. Our entire team remains focused on the customer experience and operational excellence. Despite the sluggish housing and macro backdrop, our business model continues to support solid top line performance.
While U. S. Existing home sales have been slow to recover, we’ve seen some green shoots in the form of rising inventory levels and new listings. The June REMAX National Housing Report showed inventory levels up 30% versus June 2024, while new listings grew year over year for the sixteenth straight month. However, uncertainty around tariffs, inflation and consumer confidence coupled with affordability challenges including persistently high mortgage rates have caused us to temper our expectations around a potential housing rebound in the latter half of the year.
For now, we remain laser focused, focused on the things we can control and our Q2 results are a testament to our efforts and to the resilience of our network and team. Within the industry, the National Association of Realtors clear cooperation policy continues to be a topic of debate and our stance remains unchanged. We’re focused on driving positive outcomes for consumers and we continue to believe that promoting listings to the broadest audience serves the best interest of buyers and sellers. Our ongoing pursuit to deliver the best experience to consumers as well as to REMAX agents and franchisees has fueled countless competitive advantages. It’s why we have the most trusted real estate agents in The U.
S. And Canada. We also have the most productive network in the world as evidenced by the results in the twenty twenty five RealTrends Verified rankings, one of the industry’s top independent surveys. For the seventeenth straight year, REMAX agents at large brokerages outperformed their competitors by a margin of more than two:one. This significant advantage in The U.
S. Per agent productivity represents a clear differentiator benefiting all REMAX affiliates in multiple ways. Another major advantage is the scale of our unmatched global footprint. Our worldwide agent count hit a record high as of June 30, and the second quarter marked our best U. S.
Agent count performance since 2022. As we shared on our last earnings call, April was our strongest month for U. S. Agent count in three years and that momentum continued in May and June. Our continued focus on enhancing our value proposition is driving strong demand for the REMAX brand and we’re seeing early signs of U.
S. Agent count stabilization. Now this demand is showing up in our Centimeters and A efforts as well and we’ve closed several deals this year and are increasingly excited about the pipeline our new leaders are building. And as we just announced this morning, I would like to welcome REMAX Hawaii to our team. We are thrilled about this conversion that will soon add over 170 highly productive and professional agents to our network.
This strategic move strengthens our market share in Hawaii, adds a strong and well regarded operator to our system and reinforces that influential brokers continue to see real value in what we’re building at REMAX. We’re leaning in, investing in tools, technology, new programs, products and talent to empower our agents to win more listings, save time and build more profitable businesses for themselves, which in turn fuels brokerage profitability. As I mentioned earlier, we’re making many bold moves to elevate and to expand our value proposition. Last quarter for instance, we introduced Aspire, our innovative onboarding program designed to attract and develop the next generation of REMAX agents. As a reminder, Aspire combines world class education, our advanced technology platform and a unique financial model that gives newer agents time to build a book of business.
We’re excited by the network’s reception to Aspire. Nearly 60% of our brokerages in The U. S. And Canada have already signed up and hundreds of agents are enjoying the benefits. Aspire launched in April and May and June were the first two months of 2025 with a higher U.
S. Recruitment rate than the same period in 2024. This trend should continue as Aspire becomes even more integrated into the DNA of our network. Several other benefits of affiliation are also adding to our momentum. Our lead concierge program is continuing to build and contribute to the top line by connecting consumers with agents and converting period leads into sales.
And we recently launched our new AI powered global referral system, a powerful real time data platform that simplifies and scales the exchange of referrals across our unmatched global footprint of over 110 countries and territories. These new innovations are strategically tapping into the power of the REMAX community. After all, the network effect works best at scale and no one does scale like REMAX. In addition, our REMAX Media network is also beginning to contribute to the top line. While we remain confident in its long term monetization opportunity, the launch has been slower than anticipated in part due to challenging macro environment that also has impacted advertising spend.
Nonetheless, infrastructure is in place with partners starting to come on board who are seeing the power of our brand and the value of our digital assets. Now on the mortgage side, the environment remains challenging, but our resilient operators continue to navigate it successfully. We’re supporting them with new tools, including a recently launched pricing engine within our loan brokerage system. It’s designed to boost productivity and help originators find the best loan options for consumers. We’ve made great progress in the search for the next leader of our mortgage business and we’ll make an announcement in the coming weeks.
Mortgage continues to be an important component of our growth story and we expect our next leader will help us continue to grow Motto and Wimlow while exploring additional avenues to grow our mortgage opportunity. As we look ahead, our focus remains clear, continue to grow the global REMAX agent network, especially in The U. S. And Canada, further enhance our value proposition and execute with the excellence across our brands. With the right people, platforms and programs in place, we’re on the right path and we’re very optimistic about our future.
Now I’ll turn it over to Carrie.
Carey Callahan, Chief Financial Officer, REMAX Holdings: Thank you, Eric. Good morning, everyone. We are excited about the second quarter operational trends Eric discussed and are pleased with our financial performance. Our second quarter results were a continuation of a consistent trend driven by better than expected expense management that resulted in solid profit and improved margin performance for the fifth consecutive quarter. Our top line results were right in line with our expectations this quarter despite a sluggish spring housing market, highlighting the resilience of our financial model.
Some of our notable quarterly financial highlights included total revenue of $72,800,000 adjusted EBITDA of $26,300,000 adjusted EBITDA margin of 36.1%, an increase of 30 basis points over the 2024 and adjusted diluted EPS of $0.39
: Looking closer at revenue, excluding the marketing funds, revenue was $54,500,000 a decrease of 6.8%
Carey Callahan, Chief Financial Officer, REMAX Holdings: compared to the same period last year, driven by negative organic growth of 5.7% and adverse foreign currency movements of 1.1%. The decline in organic growth was principally due to lower U. S. Agent count, broker fees and revenue from previous acquisitions, partially offset by new revenue streams, including contributions from our REMAX Media Network and lead concierge initiatives. As mentioned, margin performance improved, thanks to our focus on ongoing operational efficiencies.
Second quarter selling, operating and administrative expenses decreased $1,000,000 or 2.8% to $33,900,000 This reduction was primarily due to certain lower personnel expenses, partially offset by severance expenses from a restructuring in the current year and some investments in our flagship website. We continue to strategically evaluate every aspect of our business and leave no stone unturned. However, the broader macro and housing environment continues to be challenging, impacting our total leverage ratio, which was 3.58 to one as of June 30, roughly consistent with March 31. That said, we still expect our TLR to decrease as we get into the back half of the year. From a capital allocation perspective, our priorities remain unchanged.
We are strategically reinvesting in the business and building our cash reserves as we work to lower our TLR below 3.5
Operator: to
Carey Callahan, Chief Financial Officer, REMAX Holdings: one. Now on to our guidance. We are excited about all of our ongoing initiatives and the momentum we are building. However, the existing uncertainty in the current macro environment has made forecasting future results increasingly difficult. It has also caused some of our initiatives, like our REMAX Media network in particular, to take longer to ramp up.
As a result, we are tightening our revenue and profit range expectations for the rest of the year, but also increasing our agent count expectations, primarily due to the strength of our international agent count growth in the first half of the year. Our third quarter and full year 2025 outlook assumes no further currency movements, acquisitions or divestitures. For the 2025, we expect agent count to increase 1% to 2% over third quarter twenty twenty four revenue
: in
Carey Callahan, Chief Financial Officer, REMAX Holdings: a range of $71,000,000 to 76,000,000 including revenue from the marketing funds in a range of 17 to $19,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA in a range of 23,500,000.0 to 26,500,000 And for the full year 2025, we now expect agent count in a range from zero to positive 1.5% over full year 2024, a change from negative 1% to positive 1% revenue in a range of two ninety million dollars to $296,000,000 including revenue from the marketing funds in a range of $72,000,000 to $74,000,000 a change from $290,000,000 to $310,000,000 including revenue from the marketing funds in a range of 71,000,000 to 75,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA in a range of $90,000,000 to $95,000,000 a change from $90,000,000 to $100,000,000 With that, operator, let’s open it up for questions.
Operator: Your first question comes from Tommy McJoynt with KBW. Please go ahead.
Tommy McJoynt, Analyst, KBW: Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking our questions. The first one, Kerry, just want zoom in a little bit on the reduced guidance range. Just want to be clear, how much of that is driven by lower, what I’ll call, variable sort of brokerage fee driven volumes versus just lower more recurring fees driven by the agent count?
Carey Callahan, Chief Financial Officer, REMAX Holdings: Yes. Good morning, Tommy. So great question. I think I’d highlight a couple of things just with respect to our second quarter. I think we saw some good momentum in the second quarter with respect to the agent count performance and some of the revenue contributions from the differentiated revenue stream from some of our new revenue streams.
The reduced guidance, as we think about that in the back half of the year, I would really kind of point to three things that’s impacting the top line that’s been flowing through to to the profit to the profit line. You know, the first is just a kind of a little bit of a delay in the ramp up of our REMAX Media network. So we did see some contribution in the first half of the year, but that ramp up is just a little bit slower than we expected. So that’s the first thing, really kinda coming in that franchise sales and other franchise revenue line item. The second thing the second component is a little bit more of a tempered outlook on on broker fee.
And so, again, a little bit more on on the variable side. And then I think the third component as we think about it, that is really more of a near term impact kind of in the back half of this year. It’s it’s something that’s impacting us related to Aspire. So Aspire has really been a fantastic you know, we’ve seen fantastic results from a business perspective and from an adoption standpoint as it really accelerated recruiting. You know, as as Eric said, April and when we launched it in April, May and June were the best months of recruiting we’ve seen in The US.
But from a revenue perspective, near term, it’s gonna take a little while for us to see the revenue contribution. At scale, we think that the revenue per agent is on par or even a little bit better than what we see today. But on a near term basis in the back half of the year, there’s a little bit of pressure as those things ramp up. So it’s really all three of those things. It’s just causing a little bit of pressure on the top line, and that’s what’s rolling through to the bottom line that’s contributed to that change.
Tommy McJoynt, Analyst, KBW: Got it. Thanks for walking through those those pieces. And then also on guidance front, it was good to see the agent count guide for the full year get raised that range. When you break apart sort of what’s changed directionally, since we got the guidance about three months ago, between the different geographies of U. S, Canada and then the international side, which sort of could you rank order which of those geographies was most incremental toward that that change in the agent count?
Carey Callahan, Chief Financial Officer, REMAX Holdings: Yeah. So I think, you know, we continue to see the the global footprint and, you know, the international expansion as a key competitive advantage. We pointed not only to the agent count expansion, but what we’re doing from a value delivery perspective with respect to our Max Referral program and really leveraging the power of the global footprint. And the strength that we’ve international agent count is really kind of probably the biggest driver to the guidance range on agent count. However, really do want to stress the importance and the momentum of what we’re seeing in The U.
S. And as Eric mentioned in the scripted remarks, exciting announcement this morning with respect to a large scale conversion in Hawaii, bringing some very high quality productive agents and a really strong operator into the network. And the pipeline that we have new leaders both in The U. S. And Canada are building is exciting as well.
: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from Nick McAndrew with Zelman. Please go ahead.
: Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just to start, it’s really encouraging to see all the progress with Aspire. And now that it’s been live for about a full quarter, I’m just wondering, has your perspective evolved on which types of agents the program is resonating with? And are you able to share any just updated feedback from franchisees on how they’re use utilizing the program? Is it something that they’re actively embracing as a core part of their recruiting strategy, or is it still kind of more of a complementary tool at this point?
Just curious. Thanks.
Eric Carlson, Chief Executive Officer, REMAX Holdings: Yeah. Thanks, Nick. This is Eric. I think the comments and our thoughts on Aspire continue to hold true, right? So we’re seeing really positive adoption.
Almost two thirds of the the brokerage that that are eligible are participating in the program. Folks that are participating in the program are seeing higher recruitment rates over those that are not year over year, which is encouraging. I think the, the agent mix, you know, although, you know, Aspire comes with a technology component to help folks understand how to use the CRM and, start to nurture leads and get invested in the platform that we deploy. It also comes with a large educational component to make sure that we can, you know, help them to be productive sooner rather than later. And that helps with onboarding from a a broker brokerage perspective also.
And so we are seeing agents that are younger in tenure, you know, entering the program. We’re also seeing some agents that are using it to transfer a book of business. So it’s another tool, you know, kind of in the tool belt that a broker can use in order to attract, you know, new unlicensed agents, new lower tenured licensed agents that, you know, need an additional boost, from a great brand and a great onboarding program. And then also it can help with, obviously transferring a book of business with more mature, more productive agents that also want to, be a part of our great brand. So we’re seeing kind of all those components, Nick.
And as you can imagine, you know, the middle one is probably, the the biggest driver, and it’s really helping us to, bring kind of the next generation of agents to REMAX.
: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Eric. And I guess following up off of that, you’ve launched several agent facing tools over the last few quarters, whether it’s obviously Aspire, lead concierge, MasterFur. I’m just curious, do you have any visibility into how many agents are actively using maybe just one, two, three, or more tools?
Because I’m trying to wonder if you’re seeing a higher level of stickiness when agents are fully integrated with all of the tools in the toolkit at your disposal versus an agent that maybe isn’t fully ingrained yet?
Eric Carlson, Chief Executive Officer, REMAX Holdings: Yeah. I think that that’s a great question, regarding kind of retention and engagement. I think it’s a little too early to tell, to quite answer the tool on, like, the multiple tool engagement versus kind of single tool. Obviously, it’s something we’re laser focused on, you know, based on especially on my prior experience. However, we are seeing good adoption on the tools that we have deployed.
So, you know, folks are excited about our global referral platform and MaxEngage. We’re seeing referrals flow through there. We’re seeing closed deals flow through there. Lee Concierge, we’re seeing, you know, great conversion from a, you know, an upper funnel to mid funnel to lower funnel. We’ve got we’ve got really nice adoption from a lot of agents who have to opt into the program.
And if you recall on Lee Concierge, it was not only about delivering kind of an agent, a curated warm lead, so to speak, but also really improving that consumer experience for either buyer or seller. And we’re continuing to make improvements in that program. And we’ve got a variety of other things that we’ve launched since our four. Our marketing as a service is in beta right now, and we’ll go live here in the next couple weeks. And we’re seeing good adoption and good performance from a marketing perspective for agents.
So we’re really excited about, you know, some of the new things on how we’ve leaned into the network to help agents by improving the value proposition. You know, we’re all about just helping them win listings, do it in less time, and make a little more money. And then, obviously, that transfers to improved brokerage profitability. So, you know, the, the building blocks are in place. We’re seeing good adoption.
Now it’s time to move into the execution phase.
: Great. That’s helpful. Thanks, guys.
Operator: That concludes our question and answer session. And I will now turn the call back over to Joe Schwartz for closing remarks.
Joe Schwartz, Senior Vice President of Finance, REMAX Holdings: Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining the call today.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.
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