Zillow beat revenue expectations in fourth quarter
While still posting a net loss, the company reported higher-than-expected revenue from its residential and rental businesses as Premier Agent held steady.
Zillow had a good news, bad news sort of quarter: The company posted a significant net loss in Q4, but managed to pull in better-than-expected revenue from its residential and rental divisions to beat investor expectations.
The company reported $474 million in revenue during the final three months of 2023, up 9% year-over-year. Not only was it well above the company's midpoint outlook, it was about $24 million above analyst expectations.
Despite the increased revenue, Zillow still reported a net loss of $73 million in Q4, slightly beating expectations, and ended the year with losses of $158 million. Analysts were expecting a loss of $77 million during a sluggish fourth quarter when mortgage interest rates were hovering near 8%.
Revenue from Zillow's Premier Agent business stayed flat in Q4, but that outperformed the company's expectations for a drop of between 4-9% year over year. Traffic numbers were also relatively flat overall.
What Zillow had to say
Zillow CEO and Co-founder Rich Barton attributed the higher revenue numbers to the company's continuing development of its "housing super app," which he said is transforming "the way people buy, sell, finance and rent homes."
"Our progress in crafting an integrated customer experience in our early markets has given us the confidence to press on the accelerator and expand this experience to more markets in 2024," Barton said.
Key numbers
Revenue: $474 million in Q4, up 9% year-over-year and above the midpoint outlook range by $31 million. Full-year 2023 revenue was $1.9 billion, down 1% year-over-year.
Cash and cash equivalents: $2.8 billion, down from $3.3 billion compared to the end of Q3, after the approximately $400 million closing cash purchase price for the acquisition of Follow Up Boss.
Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization): $69 million in Q4, $19 million above the midpoint outlook range. Zillow said the increase was driven primarily by higher-than-expected rental and residential revenue. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year was $391 million.
Net income/loss: Zillow reported a net loss of $73 million for Q4, slightly higher than the $72 million net loss a year ago. The full-year net loss was $158 million, well above the $101 million net loss reported in 2022.
Traffic and visits: According to Zillow, the company saw 194 million average monthly unique users in Q4, down 2% year over year. Visits during Q4 were 2.2 billion, up 1% year over year.