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Redfin loses money in 4Q22 on mortgages

Redfin’s fourth quarter net loss was $61.9 million. However, the company was able maintain its 17% cross-sell rate from the previous three months. Redfin also suffered a $12.3million loss on mortgages. The company reported a $61.9million net loss. However, mortgages performed better that real estate services (a loss $27.6 millions); properties (a Loss of $26.3 million); rentals (a Loss of $22 million); and rentals (22.2 million). In contrast, the third quarter saw positive margins of 9.7%. Chris Nielsen, chief financial officers, stated that margin compression was caused by the price and competition in the mortgage industry, as lenders struggled with rising interest rates, excess capacity, and increased prices. However, the first quarter’s expected revenue should have been positive for mortgage gross margins with expected revenue between $29 and $32 million. The mortgage segment suffered a net loss in the third quarter of $5.2 million. Redfin’s mortgage business suffered a loss of $8 million one year ago. Prior to Bay Equity’s acquisition, production grew to $1.04billion in the fourth-quarter, up from $1.56billion in the third quarter. Only $242m was earned in the fourth-quarter of 2021. The full year production, which was only three quarters after Bay Equity’s acquisition, was $4.3 billion. This compares to $988 million in 2021, when it was $1.56 billion. Kelman said, “I think part is that it just takes a while to build relationships between loan officers et real estate agents.” This increase in attach rate was likely due to the collaboration between lenders and agents. Kelman expressed concern over the long-term shortage of homes for sale. Kelman stated that inventory will likely remain low, regardless of what happens to rates in 2023 or beyond. The most striking thing about the housing downturn is the fact that the number available for sale has not increased significantly from the devastating lows of the pandemic. Although the number of homes available for sale increased 40% year-over–year in January, this was still only half of what was available between 2016-2019. After the 40% increase in prices over the past two years, prices have fallen only 3% since May. Kelman stated that the affordability crisis facing the millennial generation, who mainly came from home-buying age after mortgage rates and home prices shot up, is still evident. “We believe that home prices will remain volatile due to low inventory. However, we still believe that sales volume will be more volatile.” Remax Holdings is not a mortgage company, unlike Redfin. Instead, it sells mortgage brokerage franchises under Motto Mortgage. This is in contrast to Redfin’s $2.6 million net income. It earned $9.5million for the year, compared to a loss of $24.6million in 2021. Steve Joyce, CEO, stated that the revenue dropped by less than 10% despite a nearly 35% decline in U.S. home sales over the year. This highlights the strengths and advantages of our diversified franchise model. “However, continued challenging macroeconomic conditions such as higher mortgage rates and lower U.S. home sales reduced our broker fees revenue, pressured U.S. agents count, slowed Motto franchisor sales, and dampened our top-and bottom-line performance. The company did add 20 Motto units net, which brought the total at year’s end 2022 to 231 compared to 211 on September 30, 2021. It had 185 open office as of December 31, 2021.