Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Alice Bennett, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome, everyone. My name is Alice Bennett, Head of Investor Relations, and I'd like to thank you for joining REA Group's 2024 full year results presentation. Before we commence, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognize the continuing connection to lands, waters, and community. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to elders, past and present. Today, you'll hear from REA's CEO, Owen Wilson, and Janelle Hopkins, REA's CFO. Owen will talk to our overarching financial performance and strategic highlights for the full year. We'll then hand over to Janelle to talk to our financial results in more depth, and following this, we'll be happy to take your questions. With that, I will pass 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 and present. REA Group has delivered an exceptional FY 2024 result. This performance reflects our clear and consistent focus on delivering greater value at every stage of the property journey. In a strong listings environment, our customers increasingly preferenced our products and services to leverage our leading audience to maximize their campaigns. REA India also maintained strong momentum with excellent revenue growth. Turning to the group results from core operations for the year, revenue was AUD 1.45 billion, an increase of 23%. EBITDA, excluding associates, was AUD 825 million, an increase of 27%, and NPAT was AUD 461 million, an increase of 24%.
The board is determined to pay a final dividend of AUD 1.02 per share, fully franked. Together with the interim dividend, this represents a total dividend of AUD 1.89 per share, an increase of 20%. Before we move into our operational highlights, I'd like to touch on the market conditions we're operating in this year. The Australian property market strengthened in FY 2024, with interest rate stability supporting market activity. The return of vendor confidence, coupled with strong buyer demand, saw sales volumes increase, while national house prices reached a new peak in June. Nationally, new listings were up 7% year-on-year and were 5% above the six-year average. As you can see on the chart on the left, listings remained above FY 2023 volumes throughout the year.
That year-on-year growth extended in Q4, with continued strong demand driving vendor confidence, while the prior year comparable was impacted by interest rate uncertainty. The country's two largest markets, Melbourne and Sydney, led the national uplift in listing volumes. The chart on the right shows that Canberra and Brisbane started to follow suit in Q4, with significant year-on-year increases. This slide demonstrates two views of Australia's demand for property. The chart on the left highlights a view of national buyer inquiries over the last five years. Inquiries returned to growth in FY 2024, up 14% year-on-year and continued to trend higher in the second half. On the right, you can see a clear reduction in median days on site as strong buyer demand saw properties rapidly turn over. Properties consistently sold faster compared to the prior year, and median days on site were well below the six-year average.
Turning to the many highlights we achieved this year. Our focus on delivering personalized member experiences extended our audience leadership, with 10.8 million Australians visiting realestate.com.au on average each month. Our personalized owner experiences helped drive a 37% increase in seller leads, enhancing the value delivered to our customers. We also reached the milestone of one in three properties being tracked by the owner on our platform. Our premium customer products and services, led by Premier Plus, saw significant growth. Record depth penetration was also achieved in our top commercial depth product, Elite Plus. Supporting our agency services strategy, we completed the acquisition of the remaining interest in Realtair. REA India maintained its audience leadership with a focus on creating India's leading app experience. And Mortgage Choice Freedom delivered an excellent performance, significantly exceeding our expectations. Our strategic priorities are clear and consistent.
To deliver on our purpose of changing the way the world experiences property, our strategy centers on engaging the largest consumer audience, delivering superior value to our customers, and leveraging unique data and insights as we expand our core business and build next-generation marketplaces. I'll now share highlights for each of the five key priorities outlined at the right of this slide. The scale and deep engagement of our audience sets REA apart. Our flagship site, realestate.com.au, extended its unique audience lead in FY 2024, reinforcing our position as Australia's number one address in property. Our consumers are loyal, and our unique experiences ensure they consistently return to our platforms. Over half of the Australians who visit our site every month use realestate.com.au exclusively, and we achieved 97.3 million more monthly visits than our nearest competitor. Almost half of all visits to our platform are via our app.
Our app-first strategy delivered a strong 5.3 times lead in app visits. The quality of our unrivaled audience is underpinned by our personalized member experiences. We know members are 4.8 times more likely to submit an inquiry and result in high-value leads to our customers. Our aim is to convert our audience into active members, and we achieved a pleasing 18% increase in our active membership base. Inspections are a key moment in the property journey, and we are focused on seamlessly connecting our consumers and customers through this fundamental step. On average, members added around 300,000 inspections to their plans every week, a 46% year-on-year increase. Our property owner experience, facilitated through our property owner dashboard, is key to driving high-value seller leads to our customers.
In FY 2024, around 45% of all seller leads were generated through our personalized owner experiences, and visits to the dashboard increased 62% year-on-year. Our continued investment in our AI-generated personalized homepage experience is encouraging consumers to take the next step in their property journey. The homepage delivers 7.5 million personalized recommendations via hundreds of different layout combinations to consumers every day. Looking at two of our new, newer consumer experiences in a bit more detail. In April, we launched a new feature, which enables consumers to place digital offers with our customers on select listings. The experience is powered by Realtair, and it's currently only available on listings uploaded by Realtair customers. From a customer perspective, this new capability helps uncover powerful insights into their campaign and potential buyers.
In June, we added an AI room visualization feature to our property owner experience, powered by Roomvo. The feature enables consumers to digitally change property images, and has been used to restyle over 500,000 property images in the first few weeks since launch. Turning to customers. Our goal is to be the first choice in digital property advertising. We also wanna provide agents with the tools and services they need to manage their workflow and increase efficiency. Our end-to-end solution supports customers in the important early stages of generating, nurturing, and converting new business leads. A Pro subscription empowers our customers with elevated agency profiles, the most comprehensive supply and demand data, and premium lead insights. When a listing goes to market, our superior advertising products provide connection with the largest and most engaged audience of property seekers in Australia.
Customers can power up listings with add-on products, such as our new premium listing product, Luxe, and our audience extension product, Audience Maximizer. At the campaign stage, REA's market-leading tools enable customers to digitally manage inspections, offers, and contracts. All of this customer value is underpinned by our powerful PropTrack data insights. Looking at highlights from our customer product suite. Record Premier Plus penetration, supported by the exceptional year growth in our residential business. Audience Maximizer also reached record penetration and delivered 32% year-on-year revenue growth. Our new Luxe product officially launched to all Premier Plus customers last month. This high-performance listing solution is designed to raise the profile of top properties. Exclusive features, such as increased homepage visibility and prominent app push notifications, ensure a property stands out.
Agent Elevate enhances an agent's visibility with features such as a larger presence in search results and the ability to detail recently solved listings. With these and other valuable features added to our Ignite platform, we achieved a 31% year-on-year growth in monthly active users. realcommercial.com.au is Australia's number one place for commercial property in every state. The platform attracted 1.5 million visitors each month in FY 2024, which is 2.4 times more than our nearest competitor. Our focus on personalizing the consumer experience is driving audience growth and reinforcing our leadership. We achieved record depth penetration in FY 2024 as more customers migrated to the highest-yielding product, Elite Plus. property.com.au is Australia's most comprehensive property research destination, and in FY 2024, we built on the strong foundations established since relaunching the site in 2022.
The property.com.au consumer experience offers rich insights and valuable information aimed at boosting buyer and seller confidence. One in five buyers now turn to the platform to support their decision to purchase a property. Leveraging the strong audience growth, in recent months, we've launched our first media integrations on the site, and we look forward to expanding this new revenue stream with top-tier media partnerships in FY 2025. Our property data business, PropTrack, powers many of the group's unique customer and consumer products, services, and experiences, while also driving revenue. PropTrack's suite of propensity models represent a substantial opportunity for our customers. They have delivered a 77% increase in high-rated leads, which supports lead prioritization and increases the value delivered to agents and brokers. In our financial services business, our higher-margin white label products continue to resonate with borrowers, supporting revenue growth.
Mortgage Choice Freedom achieved AUD 1.2 billion in settlements, and our newly launched Mortgage Choice Freedom digital offering achieved its first submissions. Moving to our international businesses, REA India delivered a pleasing 31% revenue increase, primarily driven by growth in the core Housing.com business. REA India's focus on SEO and targeted marketing continue to support Housing.com's audience leadership position, with 1.3 times more monthly visits than the nearest competitor. Our app-first strategy leverages the rapid growth in mobile penetration in India. We have deliberately chosen to invest in the app, as we know it's the future of the Indian property experience. While it's frustrating that there's no independent measure of the app traffic of our competitors, we are confident we have the best app in the market. Our second half app traffic accelerated to 45% year-on-year growth.
Our lead in app downloads, along with our leading rating, demonstrates the value consumers place in a superior Housing.com app experience. Turning to our investment in PropertyGuru, the group delivered a 12% year-on-year revenue increase in the March quarter, with growth in Singapore offsetting a more gradual recovery in Malaysia and Vietnam. PropertyGuru is expected to report its first half results later this month. In North America, Move revenues remain under pressure, with a 10% decline in FY 2024, impacted by continued challenging macroeconomic conditions. Historically, high fixed mortgage rates saw a sharp decline in U.S. existing home sales. However, there were early signs of stabilization in the second half, and transaction volumes should start to recover as interest rates come down. Despite the challenged market, there was strong growth in seller, new homes, and rent revenues.
We continue to make progress towards our environmental, social, and governance goals, achieving several milestones in FY 2024. REA maintained its AA MSCI ESG rating and was certified carbon neutral for FY 2023 emissions by Climate Active. Additional travel required to support global investments resulted in increased emissions in FY 2024. However, we remain committed to our near-term 2030 climate targets. In May, we launched our Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan, following endorsement from Reconciliation Australia, laying the foundation for future initiatives. The Australian property market strengthened in FY 2024. Under these healthy conditions, our business continued to invest in strategic initiatives that will enable us to capture significant growth opportunities in FY 2025 and the years ahead. Our growth drivers remain consistent, and you can see them set out on this slide.
The listing environment in FY 2024 has been strong, and as we head into FY 2025, we will be lapping a very favorable market from the prior year. Melbourne and Sydney listings were well above the six-year average in FY 2024. Staying at these levels will be challenging, and therefore, listings in Melbourne and Sydney may be marginally down. This would still be a very healthy outcome. On the other hand, we're starting to see the level of new listings increase in the smaller capital cities. Where we'll end up in terms of overall listings is hard to determine. However, what we do know is that the Australian property market is in good shape with strong levels of demand. This demand will be supported by higher employment levels and immigration.
It was encouraging to see interest rates remain unchanged this week, and it's expected they'll stay at current levels for the remainder of the calendar year. When we swing into the second half of this financial year, we could be in a market that is expecting interest rates to be on the way down. I'll now hand over to Janelle to take a deeper dive into our results and provide further insight into market conditions.
Thanks, Owen, and good morning, everyone. REA has delivered an exceptional result, driven by strong yield growth in a healthy market. From our core operations, revenue increased 23% to AUD 1.45 billion. Operating expenses increased 18% to AUD 628 million. EBITDA, excluding the results from our associates, was AUD 825 million, up 27%, and the group delivered NPAT from core operations of AUD 461 million, up 24%. The group results from core operations differ from reported statutory results, with a number of one-off items excluded. On Slide 26, we provide a summary of the reconciliation between core and statutory results. The biggest driver of the variance reflects the PropertyGuru impairment, which we discussed at the half-year result. Turning to our Australian residential business and trends in the market.
Residential revenues increased by an impressive 24%, driven by double-digit buy yield growth and stronger listings. We achieved a 19% year-on-year uplift in buy yield, driven by the 13% average national price rise, year-on-year growth in overall depth and Premier Plus penetration, a 3% positive geographical mix impact, partly offset by lower growth for total add-ons and subscription revenues. National new buyer listings increased by 7%, with the outperformance of Sydney and Melbourne markets continuing throughout the year. Sydney and Melbourne new listings saw growth of 21% and 22% respectively, and while Brisbane stabilized during the year, up 1%, all other metro markets declined.
As Owen mentioned earlier, while Sydney and Melbourne continued to outperform in Q4, up 26% and 32% respectively, we did see all other metro markets return to year-on-year growth, with Brisbane, our third highest yielding market, up 17%, Adelaide up 10%, and Perth up 6%. Rent listings remained subdued, down 1%. However, this was more than offset by an 8% price rise and increased depth penetration, resulting in double-digit rent revenue growth for the year. Total residential revenue growth of 24% was driven by the 19% yield and 7% listings growth, partly offset by a 2% revenue deferral impact due to the strong May and June listing result and slower rent revenue growth. The following slide shows both the penetration and mix of paid depth listings in the residential business and success of our premium listings products.
The second half saw record Premier Plus penetration, with growth in all major states, and we saw record total depth penetration with both sequential and year-over-year growth. We also delivered continued improvement in product mix, with customers migrating up the depth ladder from Feature, Highlight, and Premier to Premier Plus. Turning to commercial and developer. Revenue for the year increased 12%, with strong growth in commercial, tempered by lower growth for developer revenues. Commercial revenue growth was broadly consistent with our residential business, benefiting from strong yield growth, driven by an 11% price rise and continued growth in depth penetration. Volumes were higher across both sale and lease, with listings growth in all major states, apart from WA. The developer business has remained challenged, with well-documented issues such as increased input costs and labor shortages, resulting in project launches being down 13%.
Pleasingly, there was some stabilization during the second half, with project launches up 1% year-on-year. Despite these challenges, we delivered modest growth for developer revenues, benefiting from the prior year price rise and increased duration. Media data and other revenue was up 25%, assisted by the consolidation of Campaign Agent from July 2023. Excluding Campaign Agent, revenues were up 2%. PropTrack delivered double-digit revenue growth and developer display revenue also increased. However, media display remained under pressure, with yields and volumes impacted by a soft advertising market. Campaign Agent's performance has been impressive and exceeded expectations. Revenue has more than doubled since we acquired the business, benefiting from strong customer growth, higher volumes, and greater spend per customer. Turning to financial services, operating revenue increased 8% to AUD 74 million.
A 1% reduction in settlements was more than offset by growth in our white label products, driven by the Mortgage Choice Freedom product, and improving run-off rates, driven by growth, driving growth in trail commission revenues. We were pleased to see a return to growth in both submissions and settlements in the fourth quarter, up 7% and 5%, respectively. Net revenues increased 21%, reflecting the AUD 8 million negative trail book valuation in the prior year, with no trail book adjustment in the current year. Recruitment was strong, with 158 new brokers added during the year. We continued to exit less productive brokers, with the network ending the year up 1%. REA India has delivered a strong performance, with revenue growth of 31% to AUD 103 million.
As the chart on the left-hand side shows, REA India's property advertising businesses, including Housing.com and PropTiger, delivered revenue growth of 25%. Housing.com benefited from strong customer events, increased depth penetration, and improved monetization of our Tier 2 cities. We saw growth for adjacency revenues on Housing Edge in the second half, driven by growth in RentP ay customers. The Reserve Bank of India has recently increased focus on the use of credit cards for certain types of transactions. As a result, we've taken proactive measures, which may impact the growth rate of our RentP ay business. We would anticipate Housing Edge revenue to be broadly flat in FY 2025. India operating cost growth was 18%, above our guidance for low to mid-teens growth. Apart from the expected higher employee and marketing spend, this reflected the sharp increase in COGS in the fourth quarter.
Excluding the impact of COGS, India's operating costs increased by 12%. Core EBITDA loss has improved 9% to AUD 36 million, and with revenue growth expected to continue to outpace cost growth, EBITDA losses at India are expected to reduce further in FY 2025. Moving to our strategic investments. Total losses from equity accounted investments for the year was AUD 26 million. Move's contribution was a loss of AUD 21 million, a decline from AUD 6 million loss in the prior year. Move's revenue was 10% lower, with continued market downturn, resulting in a 3% decline in leads and lower transaction volumes. This was partly offset by revenue growth in adjacent products such as Seller, Rent, and New Homes. Move increased investment in marketing, particularly in the second half, with this increased cost largely offset by employee cost savings.
For more information on Move, please refer to the News Corp results release. PropertyGuru's contribution improved to a AUD 1 million loss from AUD 3 million loss in the prior period, with strong revenue growth in Singapore, helping to offset a slower recovery in Vietnam and Malaysia, and continued focus on costs. In June, we acquired the remaining shares of Realtair for cash consideration of AUD 34 million. Having been equity accounted since FY 2021, Realtair will be consolidated from 30 June 2024, and the acquisition is expected to be broadly EBITDA neutral in FY 2025. On the next slide is our core operating jaws. As you can see, we delivered open jaws for Australia and the group.
Excluding the impact of the Campaign Agent acquisition, core Australian operating costs increased 14%, reflecting a number of key factors. The largest driver was employee costs, impacted by incentives, which were paid out below 100% last year, but will be well above 100% this year, given FY 2024's strong performance. Wage inflation and headcount, driven by investment into strategic investments. This was followed by marketing costs, driven by increased consumer brand campaigns and customer events, and technology costs were higher, impacted by double-digit price rises from a number of suppliers and increased data usage. Including Campaign Agent, Australian operating expenses increased by 18%. As we've highlighted earlier, the group continued to invest to support ongoing growth, with investment focused on a number of new products and experiences across multiple lines of business.
Some areas of spend included enhancing consumer experience, including investment into AI and personalization, new product delivery, and continuing to enhance existing products. Examples would include the Luxe add-on and AMX 2.0. As we flagged at the half-year result, we're in the early stages of investing ahead of expected privacy legislation, with continued spend likely over the next 12 months. CapEx to revenue was 8% in FY 2024, modestly lower than expected due to the strong revenue performance. We would anticipate a rate toward the top end of our 7%-9% range in FY 2025. As a result of the continued investment, particularly over the last three years, total depreciation and amortization is expected to be in the range of AUD 136 million-AUD 144 million in FY 2025.
This reflects the growth in capitalized software projects since FY 2022, which are typically amortized over three years. It also reflects the consolidation of Realtair, which is expected to increase EBITDA by approximately four to six million. Turning to our cash position, we ended the year with strong closing cash balance of AUD 204 million. The group delivered operating cash flows of AUD 589 million, which is the addition of the first four blue bars on the graph. As you can see, the strong operating cash flows allowed us to continue to invest in the business organically and through M&A, deliver strong shareholder returns in the form of increased dividends, and continue to pay down debt with AUD 200 million of our syndicated facility repaid during the year. At 30 June, the group's total drawn debt was AUD 202 million.
Finally, on current trading, July residential buy listings are up 12% year-on-year, with Sydney increasing 12 and Melbourne listings up 15. It's important to call out here that July benefited from two additional working days relative to the prior year. If we exclude this, like-for-like growth was 2%. Year-on-year growth rates for the remainder of the financial year will reflect very strong prior period listings volumes, particularly for Melbourne and Sydney. Residential buy yield growth in FY 2025 will primarily be driven by an average 10% price rise in our highest penetrative product, Premier Plus. Positive operating jaws is again targeted in FY 2025, with high single-digit group operating cost growth anticipated, including the acquisition of Realtair. Growth in Australia will largely reflect increased employee costs due to strategic investment and salary inflation and higher technology costs.
India will be driven by higher marketing spend and continued growth in employee costs. EBITDA losses in India are anticipated to be lower in FY 2025 compared to FY 2024. The group expects FY 2025 losses from combined contributions from associates to be marginally lower than the prior year, reflecting stabilizing conditions in the U.S. On a final note, FY 2024 has been a massive year, and we are very proud of the results that all of our talented team members have produced. While we are facing more challenging comps as we head into FY 2025, we remain excited about the opportunities ahead, and we'll continue delivering more value for our customers and driving yield opportunities across all of our businesses. We will, as always, remain focused on investing prudently across our Australian and Indian businesses to drive growth for FY 2025 and beyond. I'll stop here.
Operator, can we open the line for questions?
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. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. One moment for our first question. And our first question is gonna come from the line of Kane Hannan with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. I've got three. Just the yield, the buy yield outlook into next year. You know, you're explicitly calling for a double-digit target this year. Sorry, should I read that as you think that's an unrealistic outcome or an unlikely outcome? Or just how do I interpret, you know, taking out that as a, as a lack of a target next year?
So Kane, on yield, what we've flagged is that we think the yield growth will be primarily driven by the 10% increase in Premier Plus price. Where yield will land will really depend on a number of key factors. You know, we know that geo mix has been a positive this year. You know, we've given guidance, or not given guidance. What we've seen in the past is the range of where geo mix could land. You know, in FY 2023, it was a -5, in FY 2024, it's a +3. We do expect it to be marginally negative in FY 2025, just based on the strength we've seen in Melbourne and Sydney this year.
Then on the upside, it will really depend on growth in additional depth and the take-up of Luxe and the mix of low-value asset usage. So at the moment, you know, it's very early in the year, but we're just flagging that the 10% price is gonna be the primary driver of yield.
Yep, that makes sense. Maybe on Luxe, I mean, is there any early feedback, any sort of data points that you have in the market that I suppose supports the ROI on, on what is obviously a pretty significant cost that you can talk to?
Yeah, look, Kane, it's very early at the moment. But the feedback so far has been very positive. You know, and it's being bought, you know, in a very wide range of geographies. One of the misconceptions about Luxe is it's only for, you know, high-value properties, but we've obviously priced it across at the right level for every sort of market, and it's been taken up right across the country. And it's performing exactly as we expected, you know, four weeks in, so we're pretty pleased. Some agents have been heavy early adopters, and others are watching and waiting.
Yep, that's helpful. And lastly, just costs, high single digit growth next year. Just give us a sense of how we should think about India's OpEx expense. I mean, it's obviously had some amazing revenue growth in that fourth quarter. I think you've got the Cyber City launch in the India market as well, coming through. So just how we should think about the cost growth in India? Cheers.
Yeah, we've provided guidance to high single digit cost growth for the group, so it's a little bit less in Australia and a little bit more in India, but that's the overall, cost guidance. Probably another point to note is that, within that cost guidance, we have included the acquisition of Realtair, which is worth about 1%. So, you know, we are continuing to invest in India, but, you know, we are anticipating it to be at, at a lower rate than the growth we've seen in FY 2024.
Perfect. Thanks, guys.
Thank you, and one moment as we move on to our next question. Our next question is gonna come from the line of Eric Choi with Barrenjoey. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Thanks for the questions, and thanks for the extra detail in the results presentation. I'll just ask all mine one by one. Just the first one, just back on costs. You guys are obviously guiding to high single digit, but traditionally you managed to probably 1%-3% jaws. So I'm just wondering if that's still broadly what you're thinking for FY 25. And then just on the listings outlook, last time we chatted, Owen, I think you said you were budgeting for flat. If I think about the shape, if it is flat, and if I look at your slide six, should we assume maybe first quarter positive, second quarter even more positive, but maybe 3Q and 4Q, you're expecting those to be negative, listing quarters?
Then just dialing in, just kind of drilling into that resi buy yield question a bit more from Kane. So I missed it 'cause I fell off, but just, yeah, I noticed you have admitted a double-digit resi buy yield growth that you had last year. Are you—I mean, can you repeat that 3% depth that you did in 2024? And I'm just thinking about Luxe, and I'm wondering if we got the sensitivities right, because if Luxe is 90% more than Premier Plus, sort of, if you get low single-digit penetration in Luxe, you get low single-digit resi buy yield contribution from Luxe. Is that the right math? Thank you.
Yeah, look, Luxe is obviously a super premium product, and it does have a very high price point in each of its markets. And at this stage, you know, we are assuming that the take-up follows the take-up we've seen when we've introduced products like this in the past, that it is quite slow. And I think what you'll see is, you know, there'll be certain geographies where the uptake surprises us because you'll get early adopters, and therefore you get FOMO start to kick in because it is a very high-performing product for a vendor, and we're already seeing that in terms of its performance. So that could contribute more in terms of, you know, depth, further depth penetration. You can see on the chart, you know, we're not fully penetrated.
We're always going for more. We had good signups in our recontracting, so we do expect some contribution from increased depth, but not at, not at the rate you saw from 2023 to 2024. That was a fairly big uptick. In terms of listings, you know, the only thing you can do sitting here today in this sort of market is assume flat. You know, we've started July well. The noise around spring is positive, so, you know, it's just those Melbourne, Sydney comps, you know, just maintaining those would be a really not really good market. And so, you know, Melbourne, Sydney could be flat, might be slightly down, might be slightly up. I think the other capitals have lagged Melbourne and Sydney, and they're already showing signs of now coming strongly up.
So, it's just hard to predict. We do assume flat as we go into the year, and then as we go into that second half, yeah, the comps do get a bit harder, but the environment will probably be different. You know, we could be sitting in here in sort of February at the half-year result, looking at, you know, when are we gonna get our first rate cut? And again, that will have a positive effect on the market. So we work on flat, Eric. It's the only thing we can do at this point in time.
Yeah, and Eric, to your question around Jaws, when we think about Jaws, one of the things that obviously factors in, we set our cost growth, and we've provided that guidance at high single digit. And as Owen flagged, you know, we assume that the listings are gonna be flat. Where our Jaws will then land generally flexes up and down, depending on the strength of what happens around residential listings. We don't target one to three, but that's been the historical average in the years before we had this massive amount of volatility, but that would be a good guide to start with.
Stupid question, Janelle. Obviously, if listings are better than flat, then you'd expect the Jaws to be better than the one to three in 2025. You'd let it flow.
Yeah, and that's what you saw this year, you know, as listings improved. But we also did increase our pace of our investment in the second half. So we look at our expectations around the market, and as the year progresses, if the listings are better and we have more certainty around higher revenue growth, then we may decide to accelerate some of our strategic investments. On the other side, you know, we can, you know, if the market is tougher, obviously, as we've done before, you know, pull back on cost.
Truly helpful. Thanks, Janelle. Thanks, Owen.
Thank you, and one moment for our next question. Our next question is gonna come from the line of Entcho Raykovski with E&P. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, Owen. Morning, Janelle. I've also got, firstly, a question on costs. So looking at that high single digit OpEx increase guidance into FY 25, I don't know if you can answer this, but how much of that is driven by underlying inflation, say, wage inflation, you know, contracted cost increases? You mentioned that your tech costs, some of your tech costs going up in the double digits in 24. So presuming you've got good visibility in 25, so how much is driven by that underlying inflation as opposed to some discretionary additional investment?
Yeah, look, it's probably fair to say about half of it is inflation related, so obviously salary increases. And then we have the flow-through and obviously technology costs associated with suppliers increasing their expectations around increases there. And then it's really then gonna be the flow-through of the additional strategic investments that we're making flowing through into FY 25.
Okay. So is it, I mean, is it easiest to think about it as 50/50, or is it, is, is there more than half that's essentially contracted?
That's the best guess.
Yeah.
You know, about half inflation, and the primary one there is pay, you know, obviously salary increases-
starting on July.
The other half is kind of discretionary-
-investment.
Okay, great. Thank you. And then secondly, I mean, if I look at FY 2024, they've had really strong domestic operations, but then the offshore investments have generally had a, well, have had a negative earnings impact. I think you've got some very clear views on India. But just interested on how you're viewing some of the other investments longer term. I mean, particularly Move, it's got tough conditions, a lot of competition. There was the PropertyGuru write-down. Are you happy with your current interest in those investments? Would you take an opportunity to reduce those interests if there was that opportunity? I'm just conscious that it is, at the moment, a drag on your earnings.
They're both, they're both very good markets to be in. You know, if we weren't in the U.S., we'd be trying to find a way in. The U.S. market was, had an exceptional year in, on the negative. You know, if you look at, the volume of houses, it was back towards GFC levels because of those interest rates. You know, it's well flagged over there, well in advance, unlike here, that, you know, there's an interest rate cut coming, probably in September. And, you know, they are now, they've got the opposite of us. They're cycling over the weakest volume since about 2008. So as, as consumers become confident of, interest rates coming down, we'll, I think we'll see those volumes start to come up, and that, that business will absolutely rebound.
You know, we've always said, in every market, listings are never lost, they're just deferred. So people are sitting on their hands at the moment because of interest rates as they come down. That volume that's been lost in these last 18 months is gonna come back. So, we're, you know, we're confident that'll have a positive impact on our results, going forward. And similarly, in Asia, you know, PropertyGuru is the number one, clear number one in the markets it operates in. It's got a very profitable business in Singapore. You know, it's 95% market share in Malaysia. You know, they're in good growing markets, and we like to be there.
Okay. Thank you. And final one from me. On those India revenue trends that really accelerated into the second half in the fourth quarter, I think 2H revenues were up 39% year-on-year and stronger growth than that in the last quarter. Was there any seasonal impact for that acceleration right into year-end? And Janelle, given your comment on adjacencies into 2025, sounds like we should really be expecting that growth rate to slow materially in 2025. Is that a fair way of looking at it?
Oh, yeah. We're expecting the Housing Edge product to slow, just be more flat into FY 25, just reflecting the fact that the expectation, we've put some additional controls in place, so we just think that the growth rate will be slower. But we still expect to see strong growth in our, in our core housing business, which is the number one focus we have for our India business.
Okay. And then, sorry, and the Q4 acceleration, was there anything specific?
Again-
to that one?
It was higher Housing Edge, it was higher Housing Edge revenues in the second half.
Okay, got it. Thank you.
Thank you, and one moment for our next question. Our next question is gonna come from the line of Siraj Ahmed with Citigroup. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Morning, Owen, morning, Janelle. Just first question, can I just clarify the lack of the double-digit EBIT growth for next year? Because if you look at the various components, you've said 10% price increase, you know, some depth growth, geo mix maybe offsets that, but you should still be seeing growth from Audience Maximizer and the other add-ons, right? So it's just a bit confused to why you don't mention that. Is that just because geo mix could be worse? Thanks.
We're, we're just saying the primary growth will be the 10% price. Where it lands will depend. It's just very early in the year, and where it lands will depend on things like, yes, how big a drag geo mix could be, potentially offset by increased penetration and some of our other products.
Okay, thanks. Secondly, just, just on, just a question about India, right? It looks like, though it accelerated the core business, what grew at, I think, 19% or something in the second half, so it's sub-20% growth. So should we be thinking, India is now like a sub-20% growth business in the year forward just because of Housing Edge being flat as well?
No, no, that, that's-
We are-
Yeah. No, there's, there's three businesses in India. There's Housing, there's the Housing Edge, and then there's PropTiger.
So, no, no housing. Housing, we're very confident-
Yeah, very-
In growth profile going forward. And you know, that is the core business. That is the Hero brand, that is the Hero app. And we are absolutely expecting,
... strong growth in that business next year.
Got it. Thanks. Last one, just, Owen, interesting move to, you know, to make an offer through the Realtair platform, right? Just keen to think about how, understand how you're thinking on monetizing this in the future. Is it just Realtair, or is there any broader play that you're thinking, from an end-to-end transaction perspective?
No, that is part of the suite of products we've got for our customers to manage their business. And it'll stay that way. That's how we'll monetize it, you know, so through things like the Pro subscription. The customers who are on, have been on Realtair for a while and have been using this feature the most since it launched, and again, it's new in market, absolutely love it, because it reveals a lot more about what's happening to that listing. They get a lot more information on buyers' intent early in the process. You know, one customer has said, "Can we, can you have it on every listing?" Like, you know, he just wants it everywhere. So, we're not trying to step into the process.
It's really about, you know, giving our customers more insight into their buyers, and it'll be monetized through our subscription product.
Got it. Great, clear. Thank you.
Thank you, and one moment for our next question. Our next question is gonna come from the line of Lucy Huang with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, Owen and Janelle. I've got three questions as well. So just as the first question, are you able to talk through the geo mix trends, particularly in the fourth quarter and coming into July? Just wondering, you know, with kind of the other cities starting to catch up on listings growth, whether we're starting to see geo mix moderate or even start to turn negative, right now?
Yeah, look, we, as in Q4, as we did see some of the other cities, such as Brisbane, which is our third highest yielding city, start to turn positive, that geo mix benefit has started to come down. What it means for the full year will really just depend on where the rest of the cities, listings perform compared to Melbourne and Sydney. Our current expectation is it's likely to be a small negative, a drag into FY 2025, I should say.
Yeah. So it, but it hasn't turned negative at this point as a negative drag into end of fourth quarter?
No, no. No, no.
No.
Not so far.
Yep. Wonderful. Just as my second question, so just to kind of follow through on the seller leads and Pro subscription, I mean, seller leads up 37%. Just wondering if we're starting to see a bit more of an acceleration in the take-up of the subscription product and, and also kind of the revenue contribution, or is it still kind of a bit too early in that journey?
It is still very early. It is a much longer sell, the Pro. I mean, you're basically selling a new way of working, new operating system into the agency. And, you know, it's very hard to get them to focus on these things when they're busy, when they're, you know, got a lot of work on. That said, our penetration in Pro is kind of exactly where we wanted it to be and expected it to be this far into the launch. What we are seeing is that Pro subscribers are getting more seller leads than non-Pro subscribers, so that proof point is there.
Our sales team has obviously been focused on repricing for most of the half that we've just come through, and so they'll turn their attention to Pro now as we move into this, the first half of this financial year. So we do expect that uptake to continue to increase, and particularly as these proof points start to play out.
Yeah. No, that makes sense. And then just one last one on cost. Just want to confirm, that positive jaws target, we're also expecting that for the Australian business in FY 25?
Yes. Yes, we are.
Yep. Wonderful. Thanks, guys.
Thank you, and one moment as we move on to our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Nick Basile. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Owen, Janelle. Thanks for the opportunity. Just two questions from me. First one on audience, I think you've called out you're now 4.1 times your closest competitor. Just interested to know how we should think about that flowing into your yield growth into FY 25, in terms of, you know, perhaps capturing that in price or in addition, getting some benefit in your depth ad penetration as well. And then the second one on cost, just interested in a bit more color on the breakdown across the different buckets. You know, for example, tech costs, is that likely to be double-digit this year as it was last year? Just sort of trying to get a sense of where you retain some flexibility on variable costs.
Thanks, Nick. We're absolutely delighted with our audience position and how it's moved over the last 12 months. It does underpin the value that we deliver to our customers and through them to their vendors. And that has underpinned the price increase that we put through on 1 July. So, you know, it's growing. Our lead has been growing. It doesn't change our pricing during the year, though, the yield. It really just is one of the things that underpins our price increase on 1 July.
Yeah, and when you think about the breakdown of cost growth and where it's likely to come from, the biggest drivers of cost growth are things like employee costs, technology costs, and marketing costs. We are expecting our technology costs to be up again double-digit, but we absolutely have a lot of flexibility in our cost base. If you think about the pace of hiring, we can adjust that up and down should we need to, plus we've got our external offshore service provider, where we can again flex our cost base up and down there as well. So we do still have quite a bit of flexibility in the cost base should we choose to adjust it.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. One moment as we move on to our next question. Our next question is gonna come from the line of Roger Samuel with Jefferies Australia. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Well, hi, Janelle. I've got three questions. I might just ask them in one go, given the time. First one is, with the additional marketing campaigns that you did in the fourth quarter, have you seen any return on investment? For example, higher market share into the areas relative to your competitor? The second question is around your guidance for cost going up by high single digit, probably a bit less for Australia. Can you lift that as to your probably your increased caution in your outlook for FY 25, given flat listings and probably geo mix as well? And perhaps if listings are better than expected, as you alluded to before, you could actually flex the cost pretty easily.
The third question is, just a quick one. Given the strength in the listings in the fourth quarter, particularly in May and June, can we expect some revenue deferral into Q1 in FY 25? Thanks.
Yeah, let me take the revenue one. So you're right, we did see a revenue deferral negative impact in Q4, so that will give us a benefit into Q1. The impact of that will really depend, again, on where listings land in August and September. So but at the moment, there is a positive deferral benefit flowing into Q1. On costs, as we flagged, you know, high single digit, you know, we set our cost growth knowing what we've had around salary inflation, plus our strategic investments. And that's our best view at this point in time around what we want to invest in.
As we've flagged, you know, if the market is better or worse, we can adjust it up and down, and we'd normally wait till we see at least a couple of quarters of experience before we make many changes to our cost base.
Look, and in terms of marketing, you know, where that shows up in terms of our ROI, look, so very strong audience numbers. That lead we've continued to maintain over our competitor. I hope you've all seen our marketing campaign at the Olympics. We're very, very pleased with that. And what that drives is not only audience, but things like people coming and claiming their property, people visiting the owner dashboard, which, as we said in the speaking notes, drives seller leads to our customers. So there's a lot of value that comes from that marketing as people then engage with our site.
Right. Thank you.
Thank you, and one moment as we move on to our next question. Our next question is gonna come from the line of Darren Leung with Macquarie. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for the opportunity. I might just do all three up front as well. Just the first one is in relation to Campaign Agent. Can you talk a little bit about the if there's any price differential between an ad purchase, you know, call it direct or upfront, versus, you know, on a buy now, pay later arrangement through Campaign Agent, please?
Second one is just on the op-
Okay, thank you. Second one is just on the OpEx outlook. So, you know, there's been, you know, obviously a few questions on this, but is it fair for us to conclude that, you know, the, the sort of flat listings outlook is a key input in terms of how you're thinking about OpEx? And I kind of ask this question in the context of, you know, there's obviously a lot of exciting opportunities looking at AI, investment, et cetera, et cetera, but if we are in an environment where rate cuts are called, you know, February next year, is there an option for you guys to invest more heavily?
Yeah, look, the way we manage. As Janelle said, the way we manage costs, you know, we take a view on our revenue. You know, we assume flat listings and the revenue that will come with that. And obviously, we aim for our cost growth to be below that revenue growth. And as the year unfolds, if revenue is below expectations, you know, we will adjust accordingly. And similarly, if it's above our expectations and we think that's gonna be prolonged, it does give us options to flex up, which we did this year, you know, in such a strong environment. But we like to see that kind of sustained before we make that call.
Yep. No, I think that's sensible. Thank you. Just the final one on India. I'm sure you've seen the release. One of your key peers is talking about investing a little bit less into the margin improvement. I know you've got guidance out there for EBITDA losses to be less in 2025 and 2024, but can you give us a feel as to how close you think you guys are towards breakeven in this
market?
Yeah, we're not putting out breakeven forecasts. In India, we've said consistently our absolute focus is getting to clear number one. And clear number one in audience, clear number one in revenue, clear number one in customers, clear number one in listings. I did notice our competitor saying that they can reduce the level of investment. They did invest pretty heavily this year in marketing. But I think that's a sign that, you know, the market is starting to mature a little bit, but look, they're not making money either. And, you know, we grew revenue much faster than them.
So, the frustrating thing, as I said, is, you know, we believe we've got. If you added our web audience and our app audience and compared to our competitors, I think our lead is higher than we can report at the moment. So it's a bit frustrating that someone's not doing that yet. So, you know, we took those comments as encouraging. It means people are starting to, you know, be rational, and that will influence our level of investment somewhat. Makes sense. Thank you, guys.
Thank you, and one moment for our next question. Our next question is gonna come from the line of Tom Beadle with Jarden. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, guys. Thanks for the opportunity. I just had a couple of questions. Just, again, another one on the cost, just around the phasing in FY 25. Just, you know, given the, the high exit rate, you know, should we expect a higher rate of cost growth in the first half? Something, you know, more like a low double-digit type growth and, and maybe sort of a, I guess, a low- to mid-single-digit type growth in the, in the second half as a result. And on that as well, can you just talk to anything that we might need to be aware of in terms of the timing of costs that might be different in FY 25 relative to 2024? Things like marketing, campaigns, for example. And just secondly, just a quick one on commercial and developer.
Just I'd be interested just to hear what you've done on price and product, in those businesses in FY 25. Thanks.
Yeah, look, I'll take the second question first. Both have got double digit price increases into FY25.
Yeah. And Tom, on costs, we always say you shouldn't look too much at the phasing, 'cause there are many things that move around, and we did flag at Q3 that Q4 costs were gonna be substantially higher for things like marketing spend, which was flowing through into Q4 of last year. So, I wouldn't look too much about the phasing. I think it would focus more on the full year guidance around cost.
And we'd never flag in advance-
No
-when we're doing our marketing.
Great. Thanks.
Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference back to Owen Wilson for any further remarks.
Thank you. Look, thanks, everyone, for joining us today. It's always pleasing to be able to present fantastic results like these. We look forward to seeing many of you in the coming days. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.