Realogy Holdings Corp.

Good morning and welcome to the Realogy Holdings Corp first quarter 2021 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 Realogy Senior Vice President Alicia Swift. Please go ahead, Alicia.

Thank you, Brandi. Good morning and welcome to Realogy's first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. On the call with me today are Realogy's CEO and President, Ryan Schneider, and Chief Financial Officer, Charlotte Timinelli. As shown on slide three 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, and other uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of management, including, among others, the ongoing COVID crisis, inventory levels, and uncertainties related to the continued strength of the housing market or refinancing volume. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. For those who listened to the rebroadcast of this presentation, we remind you that the remarks made herein are as of today, April 29th, and have not been updated subsequent to the initial earnings call. Important assumptions and other important 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 filing. Also, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed on this call, and per SEC rules, important information regarding these non-GAAP financial measures is included in our earnings press release. Last, to help contextualize any comparisons to 2020 on today's call, just a reminder that due to the COVID crisis, we experienced a sharp decline in open and closed home sale transaction volume commencing in the final weeks of the first quarter of 2020 and continuing into the second quarter, 2020, with open transactions turning back to positive late in the second quarter of 2020, kicking off the strong recovery that we have seen since then. The references made to April months to date in these remarks reflect data through April 23rd, 2021. Now I will turn the call over to our CEO and President, Ryan Schneider.

Thank you, Alicia. Good morning, everyone. I am incredibly excited to share our very powerful Q1 results. We delivered outsized top-line and bottom-line growth, gained substantial market share, and made great balance sheet progress. Our strategic actions, our focused execution, and a strong housing market together are building momentum for our future. Let's get straight to the highlights of an outstanding quarter. Realogy generated $162 million of operating EBITDA, $130 million above Q1 of 2020. Our brokerage and franchise businesses achieved truly outsized growth. We grew closed transaction volume 44% year-over-year, significantly above NARS-reported 28% year-over-year market volume growth. This is now our third consecutive quarter of market share gain. We have gained almost 100 basis points of market share since Q2 of 2020 and continue to lead the industry with 15.7% share. Our share gains are a combination of our strategic initiatives getting traction and our luxury market success. And more granularly, we outperform the market in both our brokerage and franchise businesses as well as in both unit sales and price appreciation. Our title and mortgage businesses produced major bottom line growth, earning $61 million of operating EBITDA in the quarter. We strategically expanded both businesses, and we are increasingly digitizing the home sale transaction. And our balance sheet is in its best position ever, with a 3.1 times net leverage ratio and a 0.64 senior secured leverage ratio. Now, Q1 was an excellent quarter for RealG and we entered Q2 with substantial momentum. All of our home sale metrics are showing very robust actual and future growth in the near term. March open transaction volume was up over 70% versus 2020. April open transaction volume month to date is up nearly 175% versus 2020 and up a very exciting 45%-ish versus 2019. And April closed transaction volume month-to-date is up over 80% versus 2020 and up an equally exciting about 50%, 5-0, versus 2019. And New York City, which has been a tough market and a drag on our brokerage business results since COVID hit, moved to year-over-year positive closed transaction volume growth in March for the first time in a year. New York City is now seeing a big rebound with March open transaction volume up 120% versus 2020 and up about 35% versus 2019. New York City April, excuse me, and New York City April open transaction volume is up nearly 400% versus 2020 and up about 20% versus 2019. Now beyond the powerful near-term momentum in our numbers, Let me comment strategically on where we are going longer term. We have been transforming Realogy. We're faster, we're leaner, and more innovative. We are the market leader leveraging our substantial current business to deliver results while building the products, technologies, integrated customer experiences, and growth vectors for the future of real estate. To give you some color on this, let me share five important areas where we are investing to drive future growth. First, We've delivered innovative marketing technology and data products to help agents and franchisees be more productive and drive better economics. And we're seeing the benefits in our results. Productivity, recruiting, winning more listings, selling homes at higher prices, market share gains. And we will continue to invest in unique products like listing concierge, Real Vitalize, Transaction Manager, iProspect, Leeds Engine, and many others to propel growth and make Realogy a more attractive place for agents and franchisees. Second, we are the market leader in luxury. We are growing our luxury position across Sotheby's International Realty, Corcoran, and Colville Banker. We will continue investing in luxury franchise expansion both domestically and internationally, in differentiated luxury products and technologies, and in our unparalleled luxury referral networks. Third, Our open technology ecosystem is a competitive advantage. We continue to develop great Realogy products while expanding third-party technology integrations to better support agents and franchisees. For example, we recently added the Moxiworks product suite to our open ecosystem. Beyond its proven core technology and strong track record driving productivity, Moxiworks shares our open architecture vision. our agents and franchisees will have access to over 50 additional third-party products via our Moxie cloud integration. And as I said in a recent interview, our journey is both really good engineering internally to build great products to support our agents and franchisees, while also curating strong products from others to connect to our world. Fourth, we have strategically expanded our national title and mortgage businesses. Our progress is driving large increases in title and mortgage EBITDA, and we are demonstrating dramatic growth in our digital title and mortgage product adoption. We continue to invest in these businesses for growth, with a special focus creating an end-to-end digital home sale transaction experience for consumers that is seamless, frictionless, and easy. Finally, we really like what we're seeing from our real-sure market pilots. Remember, RealSure is a differentiated iBuying product that gives home sellers the best of both worlds, a guaranteed cash offer, but combined with the opportunity to get an even higher offer from the market using one of our great agents. The most exciting thing about RealSure is how it's helping us win listings, and we believe RealSure could be a winner and a new growth vector. We are accelerating our RealSure product for the rest of 2021. We and our joint venture partner, Home Partners of America, are expanding to 20 markets. We are growing more aggressively in our existing markets, and excitingly, we're going to be beginning to go direct to consumer. Now, before I close, I want to recognize our exceptional real estate agents who are working hard, helping customers successfully buy and sell homes as customer demand both increases and changes. And I have great appreciation for Realogy's employees, most of whom are in the field supporting our customers, agents, and franchisees. We are excited about our future brand and technology showcase headquarters as we pivot to a hybrid work environment, and I was incredibly proud this week to see Realogy named to the 2021 LinkedIn Top Companies list, to be one of 50 companies recognized for what we are doing on talent as a real owner. So pulling way up, Realogy is off to an incredible start to 2021, and our current home sale metrics point to continued momentum, as we drive outsized growth, gain substantial share, deliver powerful profitability, and make great progress on our balance sheets. Our investments are paying off, and we will continue to invest in both existing and new growth vectors. We're building on our success as we write the next chapter of our transformation, and we believe Realogy's future will be even more exciting. With that, let me turn over to Charlotte to discuss the financials.