Anywhere Real Estate Inc. (NYSE:HOUS) Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call October 27, 2022 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Alicia Swift – Senior Vice President

Ryan Schneider – Chief Executive Officer and President

Charlotte Simonelli – Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Ryan McKeveny – Zelman and Associates

Matthew Bouley – Barclays

Tommy McJoynt – KBW

John Campbell – Stephens

Justin Ages – Berenberg Capital Markets

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Anywhere Real Estate Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call via webcast. Today's call is being recorded, and a written transcript will be made available in the Investor Information section of the company's website tomorrow. A webcast replay will also be made available on the company's website.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Anywhere's Senior Vice President, Alicia Swift. Please go ahead, Alicia.

Alicia Swift

Thank you, Chris. Good morning and welcome to the third quarter 2022 earnings conference call for Anywhere Real Estate. On the call with me today are Anywhere CEO and President, Ryan Schneider; and Chief Financial Officer, Charlotte Simonelli. As shown on Slide 3 of the presentation, the company will be making statements about its future results and other forward-looking statements during this call. These statements are based on the current expectations and the current economic environment. Forward-looking statements and projections are inherently subject to significant economic, competitive, litigation, regulatory and other uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of management, including among others, rising inflation and mortgage rate, constrained inventory, declining affordability and other macroeconomic concerns as well as the impact of the foregoing on consumer demand. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements.

For those who listen to this rebroadcast of this presentation, we remind you that the remarks made herein are as of today, October 27, and have not been updated subsequent to the initial earnings call. Important assumptions and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are specified in our earnings release issued today as well as in our annual and quarterly SEC filings.

Now I will turn the call over to our CEO and President, Ryan Schneider.

Ryan Schneider

Thank you, Alicia. We delivered meaningful Q3 profitability even in a clearly challenging housing market. We began to see the competitive environment shift in our favor and our position of strength allows us to invest for growth in our core business and to simplify the consumer experience of buying and selling a home. The biggest challenge today is the rapid deterioration of the housing market. Our Q3 transaction volume was down 17% consistent with our down 10% to 20% estimate, but the market is unfortunately worsening beyond that. Based off what we're seeing in the market today, including our September and October open contracts, we're seeing more like over 25% volume reductions driven by lower unit sales and recent third party forecasts predict lower 2023 volume driven by a decline in unit sales versus their 2022 forecasts.