[VIP] Realogy Q1/2019: Things Done Changed

In my final Red Dot, where I looked at the full year 2018 earnings results for the public companies in real estate, I titled the section on Realogy as “The Deathwatch Gets Serious.” My concerns then were centered on not just the numbers, which were historically bad, but on the strategy. I wrote then that “all of the announced plans from Realogy were still around the old agentcentric model of recruiting and retention.”

Well, the Q1 results are out for Realogy and they just had their quarterly chat with Wall St. analysts. It did not go well. As Inman reported, Realogy’s shares are down 22% to a new historical low. Realogy’s market cap is now $1.15 billion as of this writing. Just as a point of comparison, Compass is valued somewhere north of $4.4 billion after its last fundraising round, and Opendoor is valued at $3.8 billion after its March funding round. Redfin, with its sub-1% market share, is $1.78 billion (at least as I’m writing this, before Redfin reports).