Real Matters Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Real Matters first quarter 2022 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Lynne Beauregard. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Lynne Beauregard Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Real Matters' financial results conference call for the first quarter ended December 31st, 2021. With me today are Real Matters' Chief Executive Officer, Brian Lang, and Chief Financial Officer, Bill Herman. This morning, before market opened, we issued a news release announcing our Q1 results for the three months ended December 31st, 2021. The release, accompanying slides, as well as financial statements and MDMA are posted in the investor section of our website at realmatters.com. During the call, we may make certain forward-looking statements which reflect the current expectations of management with respect to our business and the industry in which we operate. However, there are a number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from our expectations. Please see the slide entitled Caution Note regarding forward-looking information in the accompanying slide presentation for more details. You can also find additional information about these risks in the risk factors section of the company's annual information form for the year ended September 30th, 2021, which is available on CDAR and in the investor relations section of our website. As a reminder, we refer to non-GAAP measures in our slide presentation, including net revenue, net revenue margins, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margins. Non-GAAP measures are described in our MD&A for the three months ended December 31st, 2021, where you will also find reconciliations to the nearest IFRS measures. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Brian.

Thank you, Lynn. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call. I will kick things off today by discussing some of the highlights of our first quarter and some of the key drivers behind our numbers. Bill will then take a deeper dive into our segment financials, and I'll wrap up the call with some brief remarks prior to taking questions. Turning to slide three, we reported consolidated revenues of $107.8 million as strong growth in our U.S. appraisal and Canadian segments was offset by a decline in U.S. title. We grew share with our clients and delivered record first quarter net revenue in U.S. appraisal. Our U.S. title operations continued to perform well, delivering against our Tier 1 lender scorecard in the quarter and landing us atop our Tier 2 client's scorecards. With plenty of movement in the 10-year Treasury yield, the U.S. mortgage rate environment was dynamic, with significantly higher rates presenting a market headwind for our business in the first quarter. First quarter mortgage market volumes were also more in line with the seasonality we typically see in the October to December timeframe with a slowdown in activity due to the holidays. That said, our first quarter U.S. appraisal mortgage origination revenues, which includes purchase and refinance, increased 13.9% year-over-year compared to an estimated 1.5% decline in total origination market volumes. The increase in U.S. appraisal revenues was principally driven by the mix of volume serviced, net market share gains, and new client additions. In the quarter, we launched four new lenders in U.S. appraisal and one new channel with an existing top 100 client. U.S. appraisal purchase revenues were down 0.8% compared to an estimated market decline of 9.3%. It's worth noting that the purchase market in the prior year quarter was exceptionally robust. It was the highest first quarter purchase market volume we have seen since going public making it a tough year-over-year comparable. U.S. appraisal refinance revenues were up 23.3% compared to an estimated market increase of 10.8% in the addressable refinance market. Our market estimate includes a year-over-year decline in the use of GSE waivers, which helped increase the size of the addressable refinance market for appraisal and offset the 31.2% total market decline for refinance market activity. In our U.S. title segment, first quarter centralized title revenues declined 60.6% year over year against an estimated market decline of 31.2%. Outside of market movements, we continue to focus on performance as the main driver of growth in our title business. We continue to perform at the top of our Tier 2 lender scorecards, and as a direct result, we continue to win market share. In addition, we expect that our performance on the Tier 1 lender scorecard will set the stage for further market share growth and the expansion of channels with this lender. The performance equity we are building today will also help support the sales cycle with prospective clients. We launched one new top 100 lender in title in the quarter, and subsequent to quarter end, we launched an additional top 100 client. We continue to move our pipeline forward and remain focused on bringing on new lenders throughout the year. In our Canadian segment, first quarter revenues were up 13.2% year over year from increasing market share with certain Canadian clients and increased revenues from insurance inspection services. With that, I'll hand it over to Bill. Bill?