RISMEDIA, May 6, 2011—Realogy Corporation, a global leader in real estate and relocation services, recently reported results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2011. Realogy’s net revenue for the first quarter was $831 million, an increase of 1 percent compared to 2010. This was largely attributable to an increase in transaction volume in the company’s relocation and title and settlement services segments. EBITDA before restructuring and other items for the quarter was $25 million, an increase of $3 million—or 14 percent—year-over-year. Realogy’s reported EBITDA for the quarter was $11 million. For the quarter, Realogy recorded a net loss attributable to the company of $237 million.
“We are pleased to report that our first quarter 2011 operating results improved on a year-over-year basis, which is significant given the continuation of macroeconomic headwinds in the period as well as difficult comparisons to last year’s first quarter given the impact from the 2010 Homebuyer Tax Credit,” says Richard A. Smith, Realogy’s chief executive officer. “Our first-quarter gains at Cartus and Title Resource Group were driven by traction we are gaining on our long-term growth initiatives.”
Looking at Realogy’s core business drivers, both the Realogy Franchise Group (RFG) and NRT outperformed the national market in terms of average sales price. The average homesale price was up 3 percent at RFG and decreased at NRT in the first quarter of 2011 by 1 percent, compared to the 3 percent decrease in average home price reported by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). This was offset by a 4 percent year-over-year decrease in the number of homesale sides at RFG and a 3 percent decrease at NRT, the company-owned brokerage unit. These results were consistent with the 2 percent decrease in actual existing domestic homesale units reported by NAR. Cartus experienced an 8 percent increase in relocation initiations primarily due to increased volume from the Primacy acquisition. Cartus’ referral volume also increased 6 percent during the quarter. Due to expanded refinancing activity, Title Resource Group posted a 41 percent increase in refinance title and closing units and a 2 percent increase in the average price per closing unit.
“Looking ahead to the second quarter of 2011, we expect homesale sides to be down and average sales price to increase on a comparative basis to second quarter 2010,” says Tony Hull, Realogy’s chief financial officer. “Despite the poor year-over-year comparisons in reported existing homesale activity that will likely peak in this quarter, we continue to be encouraged that the residential real estate market is following a course of modest but steady progress. This can be gauged by the sequential monthly improvement in the seasonally adjusted annual rate of homesales of 4 percent that have been reported by NAR since last July.”
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