Compass’ second quarter was punctuated with “all-time highs,” even as the housing market continues to plumb all-time lows.
The residential brokerage reported record numbers in 10 metrics, including net income, revenue, market share and principal agent recruiting during its second-quarter earnings call.
Compass’ net income was $39.4 million in the second quarter, an increase of over 90 percent from a year ago when it posted its first-ever profitable quarter as a publicly traded company. Its revenue increased over 21 percent year over year to $2.06 billion. Transactions also increased by 21 percent.
The revenue number narrowly beat consensus estimates for revenue of $2.04 billion, according to Yahoo Finance, a turnaround from last quarter when Compass missed consensus estimates.
The growth came despite the housing market declining almost 1 percent during the quarter. Organic revenue grew almost 9 percent during the quarter, while growth attributable to acquisitions accounted for over 12 percent of revenue growth.
Compass grew its market share nearly 1 percentage point from the second quarter of last year to 6.09 percent.
“Compass continues to outperform the market, giving us even more confidence that as the market normalizes, we are positioned to drive significant upside long-term,” CEO Robert Reffkin said in a statement.
Private listings, growth
Reffkin has been making waves in the industry for the better part of a year with his vociferous campaign against Clear Cooperation Policy and, more recently, Zillow’s listing policy. These policies threaten to ban listings from sites if they are not uploaded to it within 24 hours of public marketing.
Most recently, Compass informed the National Association of Realtors that it would not be complying with CCP, and in June, it sued Zillow over its listing policy, alleging that the listing platform engaged in anticompetitive behavior.
On the call, Reffkin said that agents have responded positively to the fights he has picked, pointing to the addition of 832 principal agents through organic channels, another company record.
“I hope more brokerage CEOs see our results as a signal that they will attract more agents if they fight for them and not simply acquiesce to portals and MLSes,” he said.
Reffkin also claimed that Compass’ position in the private listings “is accelerating conversations that would not have happened otherwise” with potential M&A targets.
In the past year, Compass has made a number of significant acquisitions, including a deal for Christie’s International Real Estate last fall. That deal was one of the drivers of commission splits falling to 81.4 percent from 82.64, according to Reffkin.
The integrations of the past year’s deal have also progressed faster than anticipated, according to Chief Financial Officer Kalani Reelitz, leading to the company taking down its operating expense estimates for the year to $1.02 billion from $1.04 billion on the high end.
On the call, Reffkin announced that Reelitz will be stepping down for a role outside of the brokerage business. He will be replaced by chief accounting officer Scott Wahlers.
The firm also posted a record quarterly free cash flow of $68 million, and expects to end 2025 free cash flow positive, which would be its second year in a row doing so.
The growth numbers came during a period when Zillow rolled out its policy that seemed to directly target Compass’ off-market listing strategy (although it only went into effect at the end of the quarter). The brokerage made no bones about its plans to fight these changes.
In its suit, Compass claimed that the “Zillow Ban destroys Compass’s ability to do the first two phases” of its three-phased marketing strategy.
On the call, Reffkin said that demand is still high for three-phase marketing and that “Compass private exclusives have stayed at basically the same level.”
In response to a question about where the industry is heading in terms of how business is done, Reffkin kept it simple: “I think it will be settled in court.”