Agent count up, offsetting losses for top Canadian brokerage company 

Bridgemarq Real Estate Services, Canada's largest brokerage enterprise, reported a modest drop in revenue for 2022, balanced by increases in agent count and earnings.

Revenue for 2022 dropped 0.6% to $49.9 million. Agent count, meanwhile, grew nearly 3% to 20,686.

"Despite a softening in the Canadian real estate market, industry professionals continue to choose our highly respected brands, a testament to the value they provide," Bridgemarq President and CEO Phil Soper said during the company's earnings call on Thursday. 

The Bridgemarq board of directors also approved a dividend to shareholders of $0.11 per share payable April 28 to shareholders of record on March 31.

Key numbers

Revenue: $10.4 million in Q4, vs. $10.7 million in 2021. Full-year revenue was $49.9 million, down from $50.2 million in 2021.

Net earnings: $21.0 million ($1.19 per share) in 2022, on a fully diluted basis, vs. $4.8 million ($0.50 per share) the prior year. This was due to an $11.5 million gain from the valuation of "exchangeable units" vs. a loss of $5 million the year before. Exchangeable units are assets that can be traded for shares of stock.

Distributable cash flow: $3.8 million in Q4 vs. $4.1 million in Q4 2021, and $20.2 million ($1.59 per share) for the full year vs. $21.3 million ($1.66 per share) for the prior year. The drop was attributed to lower revenues, higher administration costs and higher taxes.

Agent count: 20,686 as of Dec. 31, 2022, vs. 20,159 in 2021, a 2.6% increase.

What Bridgemarq had to say

"Despite a significant reduction in transaction volumes in Canadian real estate throughout 2022, following nearly two years of pandemic-fueled intensity, we are pleased with our performance over the last year and the company's ability to weather market downturns, due to our largely fixed-revenue per agent driven revenues," Soper said in a statement.

Sales volumes dropped by 38% in Q4 2022 and 25% for the year as a whole, compared to the company's record volumes of 2021, Bridgemarq reported. The average sales price, meanwhile, went up 2% in 2022 despite declines in the last three quarters of the year.

Bridgemarq also said that agents in its company network participated in about 28% of all home resales in Canada in 2022.