Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to REA Group Limited Q3 Financial Results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Alice Bennett, Executive Manager, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome, everyone. I'd like to thank you for joining us to discuss REA Group's results for the third quarter ended 31st of March, 2024. Before we commence, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognize the continuing connection to lands, waters, and communities. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to elders, past, present, and emerging. This morning, you'll firstly hear from our CEO, Owen Wilson, who'll provide a brief business update. Then Janelle Hopkins, REA's CFO, will talk to the financial highlights for the quarter. And following this, we'll be happy to take your questions. Just as a reminder, our quarterly numbers are top-line results, so we are restricted by the amount of detail we can provide. With that, I will pass over to Owen to get us started.
Thanks, Alice. I'd like to welcome everyone this morning and also acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we're meeting, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. REA Group has delivered an exceptional third quarter result, with strong yield growth underpinning the performance of our residential and commercial businesses. REA India also continued to deliver significant revenue growth. Looking at our results from core operations for the quarter, revenue was AUD 334 million, an increase of 24%, and EBITDA, excluding associates, was AUD 177 million, an increase of 30%. Stable interest rates during the quarter drove seller confidence, particularly in our two biggest markets of Melbourne and Sydney. Listings are up significantly year-on-year. In this strong market, our customers continue to preference our premium products and services to leverage our highly engaged audience.
Underpinning the market's confidence, national house prices reached a new record in April, with strong buyer demand absorbing the rise in listings. REA's strategic priorities remain clear and consistent, and our purpose is to change the way the world experiences property. To deliver on this, we engage Australia's largest consumer audience, provide our customers with superior value, leverage our unique data and insights, and extend our core businesses as we build next-generation marketplaces. Our operational highlights for the quarter reflect strong progress towards our strategic objectives and underpin our financial result. Our leading platforms hold three of the top four audience rankings across all Australian property websites. Our property research site, property.com.au, reached 2 million unique visitors for the first time this quarter, and realcommercial.com.au recorded its highest number of visitors under Ipsos metrics.
Our flagship site, realestate.com.au, remains Australia's number one address in property across every market, reaching 11.2 million people on average each month. In the latest Ipsos data, we were pleased to see the audience gap between realestate.com.au and our nearest competitor widen to almost 5 million people, up from 4 million in April last year. Our personalized experiences foster loyalty among Australians who consistently return to realestate.com.au. Throughout the quarter, we achieved 130 million average monthly visits. That's four times the number of visits compared to our nearest competitor. Our rich experiences drive deep engagement, and our audience spent 2.9 times longer on our platform compared to visitors on our nearest competitor's site. The quality of our audience and the value it delivers to our customers is tied to our membership strategy.
Our aim is to convert consumers into active members, and we achieved an 18% year-on-year increase in our membership base. Our P roperty Owner Experiences drive valuable seller leads to our customers. We achieved a 50% year-on-year increase in seller leads, with almost half of all seller leads directly attributable to owner experiences. 3.5 million Australian homes are now tracked by their owners on realestate.com.au through our Property Owner Dashboard. That's a 38% year-on-year increase. Our consumer strategy is centered on delivering the best experiences, and we are constantly innovating to ensure we're meeting challenging, changing expectations. In February, in Victoria, we introduced a change to realestate.com.au to support price transparency on listings. Prices are now automatically displayed on both the search results page and on the listing page.
Pleasingly, as we anticipated, this change has resulted in deeper consumer engagement, including increases in inspection bookings and property saves. We are currently expanding this program of work to further support price transparency in other markets. Moving to customers. Increased Premier Plus penetration continued to make a contribution to the group's revenue. New pricing for residential and commercial customers comes into effect on July 1, with an average 10% price increase in our Premier Plus product. Customers are already reaping the benefits of additional Premier Plus value, with the release of the first stage of many new features in March. This includes the introduction of the AI-powered Listing Strength Check, which scores every listing based on what matters most to our consumers. The feature then offers customers data-driven recommendations to improve their score, such as property features to highlight.
In addition to the latest round of Premier Plus value, we also relaunched our social extension product, Audience Maximizer. This popular product achieved record penetration in the quarter. As we prepare for a cookieless future, we've shifted to click-based packages, which further leverage our leading audience. The enhanced Audience Maximizer 2.0 places more control and flexibility in the hands of our customers. It includes new options for targeting, plus the addition of a complementary Sold Boost feature to specifically target potential vendors. In agency services, the addition of new features in Ignite continues to generate greater customer activity on the platform, with the number of Ignite monthly active users increasing 24% year-on-year. Along with powering many of our unique products and experiences, our data business, PropTrack, also delivers significant value to its banking customers.
PropTrack's latest valuation solutions brings together digitally enabled and traditional valuations into a single end-to-end flow. It's designed to support efficient lending decisioning, and we are pleased to have recently signed our first major customer. We look forward to expanding this solution in market. Our financial services business continues to be challenged by soft lending conditions, with total mortgage lending commitments across the market down 3% year-on-year for the quarter. Settlements were also impacted by the timing of Easter this year. We're seeing some positive signs, with a modest increase in year-on-year submission volumes for the quarter, and pleasingly, we've also continued to see growth in lead volumes. Mortgage Choice Freedom, our white label product powered by Athena, continues to perform extremely well and is on track to achieve over AUD 1 billion in settlements less than a year after it was launched.
The product is resonating with borrowers, and last week, we launched Mortgage Choice Freedom on realestate.com.au as part of our evolving digital mortgage marketplace. REA India's strong momentum continued in the third quarter, with revenue up 31% year-on-year, driven largely by the core Housing.com business. The third quarter is seasonally strong, with the Happy New Homes event running from February through to mid-March. The event brought together the country's leading developers across 27 cities and offered property seekers an unparalleled opportunity to explore new housing projects. Our focus on SEO and target marketing continued to support Housing.com's audience leadership position, with the site achieving 1.3 times more monthly visits than the closest competitor. Before I hand over to Janelle, I'll make a few comments regarding the market.
Despite speculation that interest rates may stay higher for longer, we are operating in good conditions, and the Australian residential property market remains strong. Key fundamentals, including low unemployment and high levels of immigration, along with record property prices, continue to support seller confidence and buyer demand. Interest rates are likely to trend down at some stage next year, and some economic modeling has indicated the incoming tax cuts in July will have the equivalent impact of two interest rate cuts. With a boost for borrowing capacities, these cuts will further support the health of the market in FY 25. We should note that we'll be cycling over very strong comparable volumes in Melbourne and Sydney, but any year-on-year weakness in these markets could potentially be offset by growth in other markets. As we've said before, listings are notoriously hard to predict, and the trajectory can change rapidly.
With that said, my best guess is that overall listings will be flat in FY 25, which would be 2% above the seven-year average, including this year. This would still be a very healthy market. We're in an excellent position to continue our growth into FY 25, with a strong pipeline of new products and consumer experiences. I'll now pass to Janelle to take us through the financials in more detail.
Thanks, Owen, and good morning, everyone. REA has delivered an exceptional result for the quarter, driven largely by growth in our Australian residential and commercial businesses and REA India. Group revenue for the third quarter increased 24% to AUD 334 million. Group operating expenses from core operations increased 18% to AUD 157 million, and the group delivered operating EBITDA, excluding the results from our associates of AUD 177 million, up 30%. Excluding the impact of the Campaign Agent acquisition, Australian revenue increased 21% and operating expenses by 15%. Our residential business has had a standout quarter, with revenue growth of 27%. National listings are up 6%, with the first half, Sydney and Melbourne outperformance continuing into Q3.
Sydney and Melbourne listings were up strongly year-on-year, increasing 20% and 18% respectively, and were also well above historical averages. Other metro markets remain subdued. Brisbane, our third highest yielding city, showed some signs of improvement. However, listings was up only 1% for the quarter. Perth and Adelaide were still firmly in negative territory, down 8% and 7% respectively. While listings were a positive contributor, the biggest driver of our residential performance was our strong buy yield, which was up 19% for the quarter. Yield growth was supported by the 13% average price rise, increased Premier Plus and total depth penetration, and a 3% positive impact from GeoMix. After being a 3% negative drag on the first half residential growth, revenue deferral reversed in Q3 to a positive 3% contribution. Turning to commercial and developer.
Revenues increased in Q3, with strong growth in commercial and flat developer revenues. Commercial revenue trends were similar to our residential business, with performance driven by an average 11% price rise and continued growth in depth penetration and higher listings. Developer revenue was largely flat, with continued lower project commencements offset by increased project duration. Pleasingly, the commencements trend, while still negative, has been sequentially improving over the course of the year. Media, data, and other revenues were up year-on-year. Data revenues increased due to improved data and insights, product monetization, and media revenues grew, with the higher developer display partially offset by lower programmatic display. Other revenues saw strong growth from both Flatmates and CampaignAgent, which is benefiting from the stronger market in Melbourne and Sydney, and the addition of new agencies to the platform.
Financial services revenue grew modestly, with a 2% reduction in settlements, more than offset by growth in our white label products, driven by the Mortgage Choice Freedom product and growth in our loan book. REA India continued its momentum during the quarter, with revenue up 31% year-on-year. Housing.com's core advertising revenue during the quarter was driven by another successful Happy New Homes online customer event, increased depth penetration, and improving monetization in tier two cities. We also saw a return to growth for the adjacency services on the Housing Edge platform, Rent Pay on credit, in particular. Turning to operating costs. Group core operating expenses increased 18% or 14%, excluding the impact of the CampaignAgent acquisition.
This was due to increases in employee costs, impacted by accelerated investment in Australia to deliver strategic initiatives, and higher employee bonuses in line with higher revenue, and marketing costs due to timing of campaigns in Australia, and continued brand and marketing investment in India as we seek to grow our audience. Australian operating expenses increased by 15% or 20%, including CampaignAgent. As is often the case, we will see quarterly phasing vary across FY 2024, particularly for marketing campaigns and employee costs, resulting in higher absolute costs and year-on-year growth rates in the fourth quarter. The group's combined share of associates contributed an AUD 9 million loss to core EBITDA, which compares to an AUD 0.5 million loss in the prior period. This reflects continued tough market conditions in the US and investment for future growth from early-stage investments.
Move's equity accounted losses reflect a 6% decline in revenue, with lower transaction volumes, partly offset by growth in leads, which turned positive during the quarter and increased by 4% year-on-year. Higher marketing costs were partly offset by employee cost savings. For more information on Move, please refer to the News Corp results release. Moving to current trading conditions. In terms of listings, there were two things that impacted March and April. Firstly, the timing of Easter, with Good Friday in March this year compared to April last year. And secondly, the fact that April in 2023 was particularly weak in a historical context. Indeed, the weakest April we've seen in the last 20 years, excluding the first year of Covid and FY 20.
The outcome was a 9% decline in national listings in March, while April has increased by 32%, with Sydney up 45%, and Melbourne increasing by 53%. Year to date, national listings are up 7%. Based on current market conditions, we would anticipate listings growth of 5%-7% for FY 2024. With just one quarter to go, we would anticipate FY 2024 residential buy yield growth to be between 18% and 19%. Looking forward to FY 2025, buy yield will primarily be driven by an average 10% price increase in our highest premium-penetrated product, Premier Plus. In line with previous guidance, we are on track to deliver our positive operating jaws in FY 2024, with group operating cost growth in the mid to high teens anticipated.
Excluding M&A, operating cost growth for both Australia and India is expected to increase low to mid-teens. EBITDA losses in India are anticipated to be lower in FY 2024 compared to FY 2023. The group expects losses from combined contributions from associates in FY 2024 to be between AUD 25 million and AUD 30 million. On a final note, we are incredibly pleased with the performance we've delivered to date and are well-positioned for a strong end to the financial year. We remain excited by the opportunities ahead, and we'll continue to invest prudently to drive future growth into FY 2025 and beyond. I will pause there. Operator, can we now open for questions?
Thank you. We will now conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by as we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Lucy Huang of UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Owen and Janelle, and Alice. Thanks for taking questions. I've got three. So firstly, volumes are looking really strong, with April number up 32%, and, I guess you guys have upgraded your listing volume forecast for the full year. Any color you can give us on early May, just to give us a guide into how to think about the range of volume growth we should be looking at for fourth quarter? And then my second question is on Premier Plus, the recent round of discussions with agents. Have we seen a similar level of new signups entering into FY 2025? And then just thirdly, just any color you can shed on the Australian rentals listings business. I noticed that listings were down 5% last year.
Just wondering, what the trend is at the moment, in the last quarter? Thanks.
Thanks, Lucy. Look, in terms of volumes, that April number being so strongly up, that is entirely due to the movement of Easter from April last year into March this year. Plus, as Janelle said, April last year was particularly weak. It was one of the weakest Aprils we've seen in something like 20 years or so. So, you-- that April number is not normal. You need to-- If you combine March and April, you get a much more realistic outlook. In terms of momentum into May, look, it's still a very healthy market, as I said. Melbourne and Sydney are still leading the charge. If you look at Q3 for Melbourne and Sydney, they were, you know, comfortably above the six-year average.
I think Melbourne was 13% above the six-year average for the quarter, Sydney, about 11% above. And so we've continued sort of that momentum into early May. What I would say about volumes, though, for Q4, is we've got to remember that June this year has two less working days than June last year, and that absolutely has an effect on the volumes, and that's what's reflected in our guidance of 5%-7%, for the full year around listings. In terms of Premier Plus, the early kind of roll out of pricing has been very pleasing. Customers have accepted the change. They never like a price change, but they've accepted it. We do expect some further signups for Premier Plus, but not significant.
And in terms of rentals, that market is really subdued. You know, I think you don't, you've got to pick up any paper to realize that, rental vacancies are still tracking at decade lows, which means, you don't need to advertise. Every time you get a vacancy, you put one ad on, you get 50, 60 applicants, and you can spread that amongst properties. So I think you're seeing that in those listing volumes, and I think that will continue. You know, until we see more investors coming back to the market, more rental stock coming back to the market, that rental listing market will remain quite subdued.
I think the good thing, Lucy, is whilst we're seeing the rental listings down, we're still seeing revenue growth in rental. We've got the benefit of price and also depth penetration in the rent space as well. Clearly not the strength we've seen in buy, but, you know, we've been able to offset some of that listing softness in rent.
Great. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Eric Choi of Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hey, morning team, good result. Three for me as well. Just can I follow up on that listings question? Just, I might have math this wrong, but if you just do the math, given you've done 32% in April, it kind of suggests May and June would need to decline maybe 5%-6% in aggregate. And just picking up what you're putting down, Owen, it feels like your like May might be up, but you're baking in a negative June number to get to that aggregate number, so aggregate 5%-6% decline. So I guess the question is, have I math that right? And, or, and is there still a bit of conservatism, I guess, in that 5%-7%?
Second question, just on, I guess, fourth quarter versus third quarter, just in terms of the identifiable pieces of what's gonna accelerate versus decelerate. Listings is obviously up in the air, but are we basically balancing a weak finance result in the fourth quarter versus the potential for revenue deferrals to go back to negative? And therefore it's kind of up in the air, whether fourth quarter will accelerate or decelerate versus third quarter. And then last one, sorry if I missed this, Owen, but I think you said, if you're flat next year, you'll be about 2% above the seven-year average. Just wondering where that puts Sydney and Melbourne, though, versus the seven-year average?
And then whether you'll be factoring in a negative or a potential for negative market mix when you're setting your FY 25 budgets and cost guidance? Thanks a lot.
Okay. I'll take those kind of questions one and three, Eric, and I'll leave the 4Q versus 3Q to Janelle. I think the thing to note, that 5-7 outlook is a full year number, and we're talking about, you know, a very short period of time between now and 30 June. So there's several things factored into that outlook. I think you're right, to get down to 5% it would need to be negative. But June, as I said, 2 less working days, that has, that will have an impact on June, year-on-year growth rates in listings. The second thing is, Melbourne and Sydney, June last year is when they started to take off, so that we expect the comparables for Melbourne and Sydney to obviously be softer as we go into a stronger comp.
So, you know, that's why that number looks the way it does. You're right, it would have to be negative to get down to five, and it has to be extraordinarily positive to get up to seven, given it's a short period of time, and we're talking about a full year number here. In terms of next year, yes, you did hear right, that if we had flat listings year-on-year, that's about a 2% uplift on the seven-year average. Within that, we're not predicting individual cities, but as I said in the opening remarks, Melbourne and Sydney will be cycling out of incredibly strong comps. And so within that flat number, I would, I would predict Melbourne and Sydney will probably likely to be negative.
But the other markets that have been softer this year are likely to be positive, you know. Now, they're notoriously hard to predict. If we get rate cuts earlier than people are forecasting, then the market will definitely be strong, and that might, you know, mean Melbourne and Sydney stay strong. So it's very hard to predict, but our best guess at the moment is flat, and that's what we're working with, and within that, we're not gonna put out city guidance.
When you look at Q3 versus Q4, yeah, you're right, Eric, when in the Q4 numbers last year, we had the financial services valuation impact. As we sit here today, you know, we'll do that process this quarter, but we're not expecting that to have a material impact on the Q4 results, so that will be a benefit. Deferral, you know, as you know, is really hard to predict. We have had a strong Q3 that's flowing into Q4. The impact on Q4, if it's positive or minus, will really depend on where May or June land and the timing of those listings, and then whether we have a strong or weak deferral out. When we look at deferral, though, for the full year, you know, we're expecting deferral to be, you know, effectively a net neutral impact.
So that will be one of the swing factors, and then where GeoMix lands in the last quarter will be the other, the other swing factor. And resi, you know, depending on what happens with Melbourne and Sydney listings, as we've talked about, and then overall listings. But, you know, I think we're on track for a good, strong Q4 overall.
Good. Bye. Thanks, Janelle. Thanks, Owen.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Entcho Raykovski from E&P. Please go ahead.
Morning, Owen. Morning, Janelle. My first question was around any early thoughts you have on your OpEx plans in 25, particularly now that you've got the price increase locked in for next year. I mean, I presume you're going to be targeting positive jaws, but are you able to elaborate at all on how you think about the product development spend into next year relative to this year, and what your broad thoughts are? Thank you.
Yeah, look, Entcho, it's a bit early around FY 25 detailed cost conversation, but, you know, I would say, you know, we would continue to target operating jaws for the group. And, you know, our operating jaws have historically been in that 1%-3% range. When you look at the market this year and how strong it's been, and we have made the decision, you know, the jaws are wider open, plus we've also accelerated our investment. When we look forward into next year, you know, we obviously have the pricing that's known, but, you know, there'll be other swing factors of what happens around listings and those sort of things. But as we do our budget planning, you know, we do target an operating jaws outcome.
When you look at the investments we've made this year, I know we deliberately made the decision to accelerate some of those, and they will flow through into next year. We do have the impact of inflation, but coming through still into the things like employee costs and salaries. But, you know, we feel like we've, we've balanced the investment in the right way to, to deliver the revenue growth into 2025 and 2026 and onwards, and continue to invest in things like, you know, privacy, product enhancements, you know, cyber, all those type of things, which are also critical to invest in.
We, you know, we feel like the balance is right at this point in time, but, you know, as you've seen us do in the past, we can flex that up and down, speed up and slow down investment, depending on what's happening in the market.
Okay. Thanks, Janelle. My second one is on the Luxe product, which I'm sure many people are aware you've introduced as part of the new packages. Can you confirm whether this is very much pitched as a high-end product, given it's a pretty chunky premium to Premier Plus, I think about 9%? And how do you view the addressable market for that product?
Look, it is a premium product, and it's priced accordingly. You know, it gives you exposure on the homepage of both the app and the web. You get larger listing and additional photos on the search results page, you get push notifications. You get a lot of value in that. It is a premium product. It's priced according to our normal zone pricing. So, you know, the price of a Luxe in Ballarat will be very different to Toorak. And, you know, but we think that, you know, vendors who really want their property to pop the best they can, will find this attractive. But as we've done with every product rollout, and I'll say this time and time again, this will be a very slow uptake. But it is absolutely.
The addressable market is basically every pricing zone.
Okay. Thanks, Owen. And final one for me, again, just on the new pricing structure. You've introduced a low-value asset exception for lower priced properties. In terms of your rationale for introducing that, do you see this effectively as an opportunity to increase Premier Plus penetration, or is it maybe about providing a bit of an offset to the price increase in case agents are looking for some savings? Thanks.
We've always had exceptions, and so, the reason why you use the exception didn't matter. So, this is. We're just making it a bit easier for them. You know, if you've got a low-value property in a high-priced zone, just to knock it down. And what we have said is, if you use this, then it won't come out of your other exceptions in terms of the count. I don't think it. It's not. We don't see this as a significant feature of the value of Premier Plus that we're bringing. There's a lot more value in it than that.
Okay, got it. Yeah, so it doesn't feel like that's going to be any key driver.
No.
All right. Okay, that's it for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Entcho.
Our next question comes from Siraj Ahmed from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Morning. Can you hear me okay?
Yep.
Yeah. Hi. Hi, everyone. Hi, Janelle. Just first one, just I think following up Lucy's question on buy yield outlook into next year. Can you just. I think you mentioned that there's positive upgrades in the Premier Plus, but just compared to last year, any kind
Sorry, you cut out, Siraj. Can you repeat that?
I think it was color, prim. Yes?
I'm not sure.
Mm.
Okay, it looks like we lost Siraj.
Yeah. Operator, have we fully lost Siraj?
We can come back to Siraj. Hi, Siraj.
Yeah.
Please re-queue and come up. Thank you. Our next question comes from Tom Beadle of Jarden. Please go ahead.
Thanks, guys. I just had one follow-up question, just on costs. Just that core operating cost growth of 14% in the third quarter is probably a little bit better than I'd expected. But with the maintenance of your guidance, it probably means you might do above 20% core operating cost growth into Q4. So it's probably a bit of a follow-on to Entcho's question. I'm just trying to work out the momentum of that cost growth into FY 25. I realize, you know, there's always a few moving parts, but just could you help us understand what those moving parts are in Q4, and if there's any sort of timing issues or one-off costs that you expect it to incur in Q4 that may not be reflective of the underlying momentum in cost growth into FY 25?
Yeah. Thanks, Tom. That's a good question. So when you look at the phasing of our costs, we always say that's right, there is the lumpiness in phasing. A great example of that is the marketing spend in Q4. We've got three marketing programs going out in Q4 this year compared to last year, so, and compared to what we had in the first three quarters of the year. So there is lumpy phasing and higher costs, particularly in marketing. And the other one that's a swing factor as we start to land closer to the year-end results, is what it means from an employee incentives outcome. And, you know, whether we are continuing to track above or below and, and what are our expectations around incentives. They're just two examples of where some of the phasing can change.
So yeah, I wouldn't use Q4 as a momentum into FY 25 at all and, you know, more look to our, our full year, full year guidance.
Great. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Kane Hannan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Just a few quick ones from me as well. Can you make any comments around the subscription revenue trends you're seeing, as well whether that has returned to growth with the Pro subscription launch, last year?
Yeah, look, it's really early, Ken, on subs. When you think about Pro, it's really just only been in market since October, and so it's not having a massive impact at all on our overall subscription revenue. And plus, we are still seeing customers come off no debt into depth, so they then go from a higher subscription to a lower subscription cost. So it's a pretty net neutral impact for subs for the quarter and year to date, actually.
Yeah. No, perfect. And then the acceleration in India revenue growth, when you guys had that monster print, sort of Q3 last year, which I think at the time you were talking about a bit of a pull forward from the fourth quarter last year. Is it? I mean, is there any noise this time around or things we should be thinking about, you know, heading into the Q4, for India?
It's a similar thing, actually. So that Happy New Home event was very, very well supported this year. We had a record outcome for that in Q3 this year, so we did see that benefit flowing through year on year. It's always just uncertain whether that means the activity that might have happened in Q4 that get brought forward into that event. So, you know, it could have a minor impact on the Q4 India growth rates, but it's unclear at this point in time what impact it will have.
No, perfect. And lastly, just developer. I think you called out flat developer revenues in the release, but growth in developer display in the media business. Talk a bit about
Mm.
the sort of difference there, whether, you know, one leads to the other or anything, we should be reading into that.
Yeah, look, yeah, we're pretty pleased with the overall developer outcome in what is continuing to be a super tough market. When you look at what's happening in that flat developer revenues, what you're seeing is overall project launches still down year-on-year, but actually the project's staying on the site longer, so that duration is extending out, so that's supporting the revenue. And then in developers display, you know, our sales team do a really fantastic job with offers in market to, the developers to keep them on site. So we are seeing that benefit flow through. You know, developer will absolutely be a tailwind for us at some point. You know, the benefits that we just have to have more development coming into this country.
So as I said in the speaker notes, you know, sequentially it's getting better, but we're still not back in positive territory around project commencements yet. So hopefully, you know, that will start to benefit into 2025.
Good job. I think. Thanks very much, Hop.
Thanks, Kane.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Just a moment for our next question, please. Next, we have Roger Samuel from Jefferies Australia. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. Morning, everyone. I've got three questions. I'll ask them one by one. Firstly, just on your outlook for listings for next year. I mean, you sort of based it on interest rate are likely to decrease next year, but what if you've- we've got rate increases this year and maybe will stay higher for longer next year as well? Do you think that there is a risk to your listing outlook?
If interest rates increase significantly this year, which I don't think anyone's forecasting, then absolutely that will have an impact on the market. I think if the economic commentators are saying, you know, there's probably no more rate rises, and if we get one more, my view is that the market would take one more rate increase in its stride. What would probably spook the market is there any rhetoric from the RBA that says they're gonna keep going with multiple rate increases when they—as they did previously? I just don't foresee that happening. I think we are in a market where rates are. If you look at the sort of 10-, 20-year averages, you know, rates are kind of where they have been for a long time.
And this market is again, taking in stride. So, you know, one more increase, I don't think will impact the market. You know, if we got three or four, yes, it would, but I don't think anyone's predicting that. So our, our forecast is predicated on that lot higher for longer, but eventually, the next movement at some stage next year is, is likely to be down. And I think what you'll see is if everyone is confident that the next move is down, as that confidence builds, the market will move ahead of any cut. You know, that's what consumers typically do.
Yep. Yeah, I'm okay. My next question is just to clarify on your previous commentary around deferral into Q4. I thought, given the strength in listings in Q3, then you should bang a pretty strong revenue deferral, like positive deferral into four Q. But I think your commentary before was suggesting that it could be neutral.
We're saying it's neutral for the full year. The impact, you're right, you know, we've had a strong Q3, so we're seeing that positive deferral into Q4. The net impact for Q4 will depend on what happens in May and June, as to how much of that revenue gets deferred out into Q1 next year. So it's.
Got it.
Too early to tell the net impact for Q4. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. And my last question is on Australian residential revenue. Just wondering if that includes CampaignAgent, and maybe just an update on CampaignAgent. What's the take-up of the product, given that some vendors may feel the cost of living pressure?
No, Australian residential revenue doesn't include Campaign Agent. Campaign Agent goes into our media, data, and other line. Look, overall, we've been super impressed and happy with the performance of Campaign Agent this year. They're seeing. It is a listings-related product, so we are seeing the overall volume of the usage of Campaign going up, but also a substantial percentage of people selecting Pay Later, which is where we generate the revenue. And so- and plus also the benefit, we're now just trialing our sales team, starting to refer Campaign Agent sales in New South Wales, and that's extending into Queensland. So we're getting additional agencies taking up the product as well. So super pleased with how Campaign Agent's going this- so far this year.
Okay, got it. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Siraj Ahmed of Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hopefully it doesn't drop out now. Sorry, I was just asking in terms of lead growth to next year, generally sort of mentioned, you had a positive start to Premier upgrades, right? Premier Plus upgrades. But just, is it doing better than last year just because you've added quite a bit of value this year? I just try to understand how it's tracking relative to last year.
Look, we're just out in pricing process now with our customers. We won't know the impact of the take-up of additional customers to Prem Plus, you know, until we finish that pricing conversation. Last year, you know, we weren't as fully penetrated on Prem Plus, and so we had a larger take-up, but we still see more runway, absolutely, in Prem Plus depth over time, but it's unlikely to be as big as it was in 2023.
Okay, interesting.
Yeah.
Next, Owen, just on seller leads, it looks like it's had a massive acceleration, I think, about 50% this quarter to 11% in the half. What's driving that, and can you touch on conversion as well, into prospects to actual listings?
Yeah, the seller leads delivery to our customers, you know, up 50% has been spectacular, and we're delighted. And it is. It's really the result of our strategy to engage consumers more with their own property. As I said, a lot of those leads are coming from the Property Owner Dashboard. That increase in claimed properties and that increase in engagement by consumers with their property means that at the time they're starting to think about selling, they're on our site, they're using our experiences, and they're clicking through from us to agents. And these are high intent potential vendors. So, you know, we've spoken before, we get about, you know, between 30%-35% conversion of leads to listings, which is exceptionally high quality.
So we're really delighted that, you know, all of that work is starting to come to fruition.
Okay, so conversion's actually holding up. Great. Last one.
Yes.
Jan, in terms of cost. Thanks, Owen. Just, just in terms of cost for FY 25, Janelle, I, I know it's early in the budgeting process, but just looking at your hiring activity, there's a step up, as you mentioned, in the March quarter. Looks like job listings are tracking down now. I'm not sure if it's because of the hire for longer or just uncertainty next year. Seems like you're not really adding as many employees or not looking for that. Is there any comments on that?
Sorry, is your question that, are we continuing to hire in Q4?
It seems like your hiring activity is slowing, right? Heading into FY 25.
Well, I think there's no, I would say we're, we are still on track with our planned accelerated investment in the second half of 2024. I think what you are seeing potentially is lower turnover. So what's happening in the market with, you know, uncertainty out there, you know, we're seeing record low turnovers of our employees at the moment, so you're not having to do as much hiring because we've, we're keeping our, our team members for longer, and they're also very happy, which is good. So that could be playing into it, but I think there's no change in our planned hiring for, for the work that we need to deliver.
Got it. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Our last question comes from Nick Basile of CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi, Owen and team. Just two questions, two questions from me. The first one on financial services. Just interested to understand, some of those new products you mentioned relative to the, the headline numbers. Sounded like headline numbers are a bit more modest as far as revenue goes, but the, the new products are doing quite well. So just help us understand any kind of base effect there. And then second one, just on the buy yields for 25. Just trying to understand the potential swing from GeoMix , given, as you said, the, the potential decline in Sydney and Melbourne listings, how that might move around your, your yield relative to, say, the 19% you've just done in the third quarter? Thanks.
Well, I'll take the FS one. All right. So, yeah, look, the Mortgage Freedom product is going way above our expectations in terms of the volume we've written, so far and planned, you're right. And we should bear in mind that we were rolling that new product out across the year, so we're not really seeing the full impact of that across our broker network yet. And to remind everyone, that white label product that's powered by Athena is significantly more profitable than a typical bank loan written out of our broker network. So we're delighted with the penetration to date. We expect that to go up over time. And so yeah, it's performing well, and it is helping offset some of that weakness you're seeing in the overall market, for mortgages.
I'll let Janelle take the.
Yeah.
Other question.
GeoMix is an interesting one. You know, normally, historically, we didn't have to talk about it too much because it had a very minimal impact. But if you think back to FY 2023, the impact of Melbourne and Sydney leading us down into the downturn had a net 5% impact on GeoMix. We look year to date this year, Melbourne, Sydney leading us out, a positive 3% year to date. So you know, it could be somewhere in that range. It's probably the bookends, but, you know, hopefully it's a more muted impact going forward. But, you know, we can't predict where it's gonna have an impact on overall yield into next year at this point in time.
That's okay. That, yeah, that's perfect and very helpful. Cheers.
Thank you. This concludes the Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back to Owen.
I would just like to thank everyone for joining us, this morning. We're delighted to present those exceptional results and, look forward to finishing the year strongly. Thanks, everyone.