REA Group Ltd

ASX:REA

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q3

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the REA Group Limited Q3 FY '21 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Graham Curtin, General Manager of Group Reporting. Please go ahead.

[Graham Curtin, Executive Manager of Financial Reporting]

Good morning, everyone. My name is Graham Curtin, General Manager of Group Reporting, and I'd like to thank you for joining us to disclose REA Group's results for the third quarter ended 31 March 2021. As you know, our quarterly numbers are very much top line results, so we're restricted in the amount of detail we can give. Our CEO, Owen Wilson, will provide a business update, followed by our CFO, Janelle Hopkins, talking to the financial results. Before closing, we'll be happy to take any questions that you may have.With that, I'll hand over to Owen.

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

Thanks, Graham, and good morning, everyone. REA delivered a strong performance for the quarter ended 31 March. This very pleasing result reflects a market that has rebounded from COVID, increased Premiere penetration and record audience numbers. Revenue was $225.6 million, an increase of 8%, excluding acquisitions. And EBITDA from core operations, including share of profits from associates, was $123.3 million, an increase of 13%.During the quarter, we saw national listings increase by 8% year-on-year, with Sydney and Melbourne up 5% and 13%, respectively. This shows the sustained positive momentum across Australian housing markets, supported by record low interest rates, government stimulus measures and growing consumer confidence.Once again, realestate.com.au delivered record audience numbers driven by strong buyer activity during the quarter. March saw a new record of 13.2 million people turn to realestate.com.au and our highest ever number of visits at 137 million. This was more than 3x the nearest competitor. We also saw an incredible upside in buyer demand, with inquiries of properties for sale on realestate.com.au up 82% year-on-year for the quarter. These numbers paint a compelling view of a market that has clearly rebounded from COVID.Before I move on to some of the key initiatives during the quarter, I'd like to highlight some pleasing sustainability milestones. Firstly, REA's ESG rating by MSCI has been elevated to an A, which is a pleasing external recognition of our ESG agenda. We're also pleased to complete the certification process for our FY '20 carbon footprint. REA is now officially a carbon-neutral organization.Looking at consumer highlights for the quarter, and we continue to innovate to deliver highly personalized experiences. Our property owner dashboard is our experience that helps owners make decisions related to selling, renting, renovating and refinancing. This includes a powerful combination of our consumer behavior data, property supply data, content and calculators. Since launching in December, we've seen very strong engagement. Over 75% of owners are returning to view their dashboard on multiple occasions, while over 40,000 market appraisals were initiated from this experience during the quarter.We've added 2 new features to the dashboard in March. The first is similar sold and for sale properties, helping owners understand the value of properties similar to theirs. The second is buyer demand push notifications, an experience that alerts owners to how many buyers are seriously looking at properties like theirs each month. The strength of our consumer engagement is also demonstrated by the fact that people are now tracking almost 2.8 million properties, a 68% year-on-year increase.Turning to our customers. Our ability to provide agents with access to the largest and most engaged audience of property seekers remain stronger than ever. In Q3, we attracted over 1.9 million average monthly visits to the Find Agent section on realestate.com.au, a 26% year-on-year increase. We also saw a strong performance in terms of the volume of seller leads being generated, increasing 83% year-on-year for the quarter.We've introduced our latest depth contracts, which deliver enhanced value across our advertising product range. As part of this, customers will commit to a 2-year contract, which includes an average FY '22 price rise of 8%. This reflects the increased value delivered to our customers over the past 2 years and our exciting new product pipeline. Customers committing to this new contract will also benefit from price certainty in the second year with an increase of no greater than 6%.In April, we officially launched our exciting new product offering called; [ Connect ]. Partnering with Realtair, Connect helps agents engage with prospective vendors and win their next listing. It covers every stage of the prospecting journey. Our customers are provided with access to customizable presentation and branding tools, powerful demand and property data and the digital capability to sign and secure listings on the spot. Initial customer uptake of Connect has well and truly exceeded our expectations.We've also launched our new agency dashboard within Ignite, our self-service platform for customers. This allows agency principals to better understand their performance in the market. For example, they can view how many seller leads their agency is receiving, the number of new sale and rental listings their agency has listed and where their agency ranks on their market share of new listings.Turning now to financial services marketplace. In March, we announced our proposal to acquire Mortgage Choice. This provides a compelling opportunity to establish a leading mortgage broking business with increased scale. This aligns with REA's financial services strategy by leveraging the group's digital expertise, high-intent property seeker audience and data insights across a larger network. It also complements the existing Smartline broker footprint, resulting in greater national broker coverage.Our home loan section on realestate.com.au continues to attract a highly engaged audience. A highlight in Q3 was introducing the ability for consumers to track their loans as part of their on-site experience. We are now able to provide people with proactive, personalized recommendations when better home loan deals become available as well as help them effectively monitor equity in their properties. This also enables us to generate more qualified, higher-value mortgage leads.When it comes to REA having Australia's most comprehensive property data, I'm pleased to announce that later this month, we will launch the REA Insights business report. I know this is something that many of you have been asking for, for some time. This monthly report will provide an update on new and active listings for properties for sale on realestate.com.au. Each capital city and regional area will be covered, showing month-on-month and year-on-year percentage changes. Not only will the report provide valuable insights to our customers and consumers, we believe it will serve as the most accurate view of new listing data in the market.Turning now to our global business. Across Asia, trading conditions have continued to be difficult given the ongoing impact of COVID. Despite this, our businesses in Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong all delivered strong increases in site visits for the quarter. Malaysia and Hong Kong delivered new mobile app experiences, which resulted in increased consumer engagement and lead generation. In India, Elara delivered a very pleasing result for the quarter as the property market showed signs of recovery prior to the impacts of the current wave of COVID being felt. We continue to monitor the situation, and our #1 priority is to provide the necessary care and support to our people and their families. We're introducing a number of measures to safeguard our employees. This includes working with local health representatives to set up a makeshift clinic and staff support center in our new Delhi head office to provide COVID testing and vaccines to our teams and their immediate families.As many of you would have heard on the news call this morning, Move, Inc. in North America performed strongly during the quarter. Average monthly unique users of realtor.com's web and mobile sites grew 44% year-on-year to 98 million in the third quarter with a record 108 million unique users in March.Before I hand over to Janelle, a few comments regarding current market conditions. The property market is in full flight. We're seeing very strong growth conditions, with the economy performing better than expected, property prices rising across the majority of the country and consumer confidence continuing to improve. The strength of Australia's property market continued throughout April, and we expect these positive conditions to prevail throughout the remainder of 2021 calendar year, underpinned by record low interest rates and falling unemployment rates. Having said that, we are starting to see some of the theme coming out of the market. Sellers still see it as a very good time to sell, but buyers are becoming slightly more weary. I characterize it as moving from fear of missing out to fear of overpaying. It's not necessarily a bad thing to the market, it probably brings the supply and demand equation back into more balance. These market conditions position REA for a strong finish to the year.With that, I'll hand over to Janelle.

[Janelle Hopkins, Chief Financial Officer]

Thanks, Owen, and good morning, everyone. REA delivered a strong result as the Australian residential market conditions continued to improve during the quarter, particularly in Melbourne. As we typically do, we have provided group results in the tables in the ASX release for the quarter and year-to-date. In addition, this quarter, we have also provided revenue, operating expense and EBITDA growth rates, excluding the Elara acquisition, to give visibility of like-for-like growth. These ex acquisition growth rates back out Elara's consolidated revenue and expenses from 1st of January 2021 and also strip out Elara's associate contribution losses prior to that.Revenue for the quarter was $225.6 million. Operating expenses from core operations were $103.7 million, and the group delivered EBITDA, including the results from our associates, of $123.3 million. Excluding the impact of the Elara acquisition, group revenue and operating costs both increased by 8%; and EBITDA, including associates, grew 13%.The Australian residential property market showed growing strength during the quarter. After a flat year-on-year performance in January, February and March national listings grew 7% and 15%, respectively, to deliver 8% growth in Q3, with Sydney up 5% and Melbourne continuing to perform strongly, up 13%. This listings growth, combined with improved penetration, product mix and continued positive growth in add-on products, resulted in addition with an increased Australian residential revenue for the quarter.Turning to Commercial and Developer. We continue to see the benefit from the government's Home Builder scheme during the quarter, which saw new product -- project commencements, up 14% year-on-year. This growth continues to be driven by smaller, lower-yielding developments. However, as we saw during the first half, this growth in Developer was partially offset by a decline in Commercial revenues due to the continued impact of COVID on market activity.Media, data and other revenues were down modestly during the quarter, with growth in data and media revenues offset by a reduction in developer display revenue given fewer large-scale developments.Financial Services operational metrics were strong in the third quarter, with both submissions and settlements experiencing double-digit growth and the broker network continuing to expand. However, reported revenue declined due to a reduction in partnership revenue, with the current NAB agreement performance payments ending in September 2020.Unfortunately, the Asia businesses continued to be negatively impacted by COVID. Revenue decreased for the quarter driven predominantly by Malaysia, which continued to be heavily impacted by movement restriction orders. As Owen discussed earlier, India is also experiencing significant challenges as a result of COVID. Despite the challenging environment, Elara delivered earnings within expectations with $9.5 million in revenue and a $7.3 million EBITDA loss for the quarter. The group's combined share of associates contributed $1.4 million, an improvement from the $7 million loss in Q3 FY '20. This was largely driven by a strong performance from Move, Inc., which delivered impressive revenue growth of 37%; and also the removal of Elara losses, which were previously equity accounted.Move's performance was due to strong growth in the traditional lead generation product and the referral model, both benefiting from over 40% increase in average monthly [ lead ] volumes and higher transaction volumes. The referral model also benefited from higher average home values.Operating costs, excluding acquisitions, increased by 8% during the quarter, primarily driven by increased headcount, salaries and incentives linked to stronger revenue growth. For the 9 months to March, operating costs were 7% lower than the prior year.On current trading, the strength of Australia's property market is evident. In April, national residential listings were up 98% year-on-year, with an increase in Melbourne of 127% and 116% in Sydney. It is important to note, however, that while market dynamics are positive, year-on-year listings growth rates also reflect the severe COVID-related declines experienced in April 2020, which saw listings in that month down 33% on the prior corresponding period. Year-on-year comparables are expected to remain favorable for the remainder of FY '21 given listings in Q4 FY '20 were down 14% on the prior year.Developer revenues are expected to continue to be supported by growth in lower-yielding developments for the remainder of FY '21. And Commercial and Asia revenues are expected to improve in quarter 4 as we cycle over COVID-impacted comparatives.Despite a strong third quarter result, India's COVID situation could have a negative impact on Q4 results. It is worth noting that Q4 is seasonally the lowest quarter for property transactions in India. Elara is currently anticipated to deliver second half FY '21 revenues of between $12 million and $17 million and an EBITDA loss of $15 million to $20 million. This guidance is unchanged from previous projections.The group continues to target full year positive operating [ jaws ], excluding the impact of acquisitions. As highlighted earlier, whilst year-to-date costs are down 7% year-on-year, in Q4, we are cycling over a quarter where we undertook a combination of one-off and structural cost savings, so our cost growth will naturally be higher. For the full year, we are anticipating core operating costs to increase marginally on FY '20 as revenue-related variable costs are higher than previously expected. Increases related to performance incentives and a better performance of Audience Maximiser product, which has a cost of goods sold.In April, the $70 million debt facility was repaid on maturity, and in order to finance the proposed Mortgage Choice acquisition, the group is expected to refinance and increase the current $170 million syndicated facility in quarter 4.I'll pause there, operator, we will now open for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Darren Leung from Macquarie.

[Darren Leung, Analyst]

Just 2 for me, please. So the first one is just in relation to the cost guidance. I wonder if you could unpack that a bit, please, just to get a feel for the extent of revenue-related costs, just given our understanding on Audience Maximiser product shouldn't have that [indiscernible]. So that's question one.And then the second one was just around yield, please. Can you please give us an indication of the extensive yield growth just for the headline? It looks like it's a little bit subdued given listings and like-for-like revenue of both 8%, please?

[Janelle Hopkins, Chief Financial Officer]

So on the cost guidance, when you think about -- what we flagged is a small increase -- marginal increase on FY '20 compared to what we flagged last time, which were expecting to be flat. There's really 2 key drivers of that. One is in relation to, as we said, revenue-related cost growth. So that is in relation to things like our Audience Maximiser product as the market has been stronger than what we anticipated when we gave the guidance at the last update. The reality is that we have -- there is more revenue associated with Audience Maximiser, and that has cost of goods sold associated with it. So that is just up a little bit.The other addition to that is in relation to performance incentives. And as we get towards the end of the year, we obviously refine our expectation of performance incentives in line with where the revenue results are landing. So we have refined that upwards.And in relation to yield, our expectation -- we have seen yield growth in this quarter in relation to that stronger penetration as well as performance. When you look at the 8%, that obviously also includes the impact of Developer, Commercial and Asia in those numbers. So you can't just take that as a like-for-like.

[Darren Leung, Analyst]

Okay. Can you give us an indication as to what yield growth was in the third quarter, please?

[Janelle Hopkins, Chief Financial Officer]

No, we don't provide that level of detail for the quarter.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Kane Hannan from Goldman Sachs.

[Kane Hannan, Research Analyst]

Just on those price rises you spoke to, Owen. Given all the uncertainties around the outlook, what happens with [indiscernible] and how the market plays out, just interested why you'd limit your second year price rise, I suppose, [indiscernible] structure. And then I suppose what things would play out that mean that the price rise could be less than that 6%, I suppose, what you have to see in the market?Secondly, just around Agent Match. Can you just comment on where you land in terms of the commercial model for your leads product, please?And then just last one, quick one, just around India. Just comment on what assumptions you've made around COVID and how the next few months play out there for that $15 million to $20 million loss.

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

Thanks, Kane. Look, in terms of the new contracts going forward, we're mindful of 2 things. One, the constant feedback from our customers is around getting certainty of what's coming. And you'll recall our previous Premiere contract was a 2-year construct with a lower increase in the second year. Now we didn't follow through with that because of COVID last year, but that had been baked into those contracts. And so we wanted to replicate that because it's what our customers want to see.In terms of the 6%, that reflects a couple of things. One is, obviously, it's hard to predict where the market will be a couple of years out, but we're confident that, that number plus some of the things we've got in our pipeline coming in over the course of FY '22 will deliver what we think will be a pleasing revenue increase going to FY '23. So we put our numbers based on where we know our products are coming and also to give us some flexibility around the market. My view is it would require some unexpected market conditions for [ us ] not to be at 6% going into FY '22.In terms of Agent Match, at the moment, Agent Match as a product doesn't exist. We don't charge for leads at the moment. We are focusing on 2 parts of the process. One is continuing to generate more leads, continuing to build up the population of ratings and reviews and continuing to get our -- the kind of ecosystem of connecting consumers with customers in place and robust. Once we've done that, we can look to monetize, and we'll obviously not announce that in advance.In terms of India, it's a weird market. COVID has been pretty bad over there even before this recent wave, and yet we saw a remarkably strong Q3 result. And as we go into April, it's surprisingly been a robust month despite COVID. It's -- I find it staggering that in a market where such distressing themes that we're seeing on our TV screens happening, that people are still somehow [indiscernible] to transact on property.Now Q4 is a seasonally lowest month. It's basically equivalent to our December, January in terms of property. And so our view is the impact will be lessened because of that. What we saw after the first big wave of COVID in India was a very sharp V-shaped recovery. And all of the kind of projections that we're seeing is that they expect that to happen again when they get through this. Now we're a long away from [ trough ], right? Everyone is predicting that the numbers will peak probably in the first half of May. And let's hope that with proper medical supplies, vaccines and maybe a bit of restrictions in the market in terms of movement, they can recover.So in terms -- that's why our guidance is unchanged. We're pretty confident we're going to come with those numbers taking this into account for Q4. And then beyond that, it will -- if it continues, it will have an impact on the rate of investment and the pace of investment in India. We will obviously pace that according to what's happening from a COVID perspective.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Lucy Huang from Bank of America.

[Lucy Huang, Analyst]

I've just got 3 questions. So firstly, just to follow on the price increase question. I guess what proportion of customers are you expecting -- or agents are you expecting to sign on to this Premiere oral contract this year? Just wondering because, I guess, maybe there's a bit of upside for next year when new customers sign on in FY '22.And then secondly, just in the Queensland market, I guess talk through some of the competitive dynamics in that state, whether that's changed more recently. And then just thirdly, with listing volume, are you able to talk about how early May is trending as well?

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

Thanks, Lucy. In terms of the price increase, I need to be clear, that price increase applies across the entire market. But in terms of the Premiere contract, that's [ the new 2 ] contracts. We've only just started the rollout. The feedback we're getting from our sales team is that it's being very well accepted by the customers. They are getting new features with this new Premiere contract. And one in particular, we're providing a significant increase in the amount of information they get on each buy lead, which is a huge boom for this.They're also getting greater flexibility in their exceptions. And so part of the new contract is that a portion of our listings can be done as a pay-on-sale. We don't expect that to get a lot of utilization in this market, but it is a flexibility our customers really value. As we sit here today, I expect more customers will upgrade to this new contract. The features are very compelling. And so we do expect to see a proportion of customers tear up as we roll out the process.In terms of the Queensland market dynamics, there are not a lot of change. We feel we're holding our own in Queensland. We've just got our latest round of customer sentiment surveys. We've been doing this since 2015, 6 monthly ways of customer sentiment. I'm pleased to say that we've got a record, a new record in customer sentiment towards REA, and pleasingly, the large set of gap we've got over our nearest competitor. And that's applying in basically every market. So I'm not seeing a change in the dynamic in Queensland.In terms of May, look, it's obviously significantly up percentage terms. The momentum is continuing. We're talking about crazy percentage increases over May last year. Remember, May was the second month of lockdown last year. So the percentages are a little bit meaningless. Probably the best way to think about the market, even if you go back to 2019, you're not really comparing it to a normal year. That was the Royal Commission year and the election year. And so the numbers [indiscernible] back then.The last kind of what I'll call inverted commerce, normal year was 2018, and we're up on that as well. So it's a very healthy market. Never has it been a better time for people to sell their properties, and probably never has it been a better time for people to buy because of the interest rates. So if you can get access to finance, the reasons to buy and the reasons to sell are both in existence. That's kind of -- it's almost like a perfect market at the moment.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Entcho Raykovski from Crédit Suisse.

[Entcho Raykovski, Research Analyst]

My questions, firstly, if I can start on a follow-up on Agent Match. Are you able to clarify, were they bundled into Premiere All under the new contracts that you're rolling out? I know you've said it's not a separate product, but if you can clarify, I think it would be useful, I guess, as we're thinking about monetization.And then secondly, I know you're not providing the details around depth penetration contribution in the quarter, but I'm interested in whether you think that will accelerate into Q4 given you've got some easier comps or wondering whether the strength in June last year makes this quite difficult to forecast.And then my final question is on Developer where the cycle seems to be turning. I mean, more broadly, how are you thinking about the upside there from a cyclical recovery and the sort of revenue that you could generate from this segment?

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

I'm going to take questions 1 and 3, and I'll hand over to Janelle the middle one. Agent Match is not bundled into Premiere All. Premiere All is a buy listing product, and they're not really related. Where you're going to see the lead -- seller lead process play out, as I said earlier, is in 3 areas. One is we want to get up -- get the ratings and reviews levels up. So the consumers know that we are the place you come and search for an agent, you test the market, you research and then you make your selection. And we've still got a long way to go on that. We're very pleased with the number of ratings. They're at all-time highs. It's going up month on month on month, but we've got more work to do there.The other big focus for us is our Connect product. This is a new way for our customers to go to market and pitch to vendors. And it is basically a complete operating system, end-to-end digital sign-on process, including, ultimately, the ability to pay on the spot or finance through CampaignAgent. So that is a new product sale. That is our primary focus at the moment. And then as we go forward and we get this ecosystem in place, and monetization of seller leads will follow after that.

[Janelle Hopkins, Chief Financial Officer]

In relation to depth penetration, we're really pleased in Q3 to see the rebound in penetration overall, and actually, more pleasingly, seeing increase in Premiere penetration across every state in the country. If you look into Q4, if you think about the strength we've seen in listings in April and into May, we would expect to see benefit and penetration continue into Q4.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your next question is from Roger Samuel from Jefferies Australia.

[Roger Samuel, Equity Analyst]

Two questions for me. First one is, so you're increasing prices this coming July. Are you also thinking about launching new products into the market?And second thing is with Financial Services, you recorded on the press before that with Mortgage Choice, you have a combined 6% share of the settlements in the market and you're targeting 10% longer term. I'm just wondering what's your strategy to grow that market share from 6% to 10%.

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

Thanks, Roger. Look, we've always got new products in the pipeline. We obviously never announce them before release just because of the commercial sensitivity. I mean, I think the key new one that we have launched just recently is Connect. I mean this is a compelling new product that we think will change the game in the way that agents go to vendors. And the early feedback from customers is incredibly positive. The uptake already, and it's only been weeks, is way ahead of where we thought it would be. This is a subscription-based product, and we charge on a per seat basis. And so we're really excited about that in the long term.Like any product, though, it is going to take a long time for that to mature. It's early days, and with every product, whether it be [ guests ], whether it be Audience Maximiser, you've seen the period between launch and maturity is usually quite extended. And so you're not going to see a huge revenue uptake in FY '22 from Connect, but in the years beyond that, you will. The other element of that is for those who are signing up earlier, they're getting the first [ 6 ] months free. So you definitely don't see any revenue in the first half of next year.In terms of...

[Roger Samuel, Equity Analyst]

Sorry, I was -- yes, I was just wondering, maybe something like a Premiere Plus, so something above Premiere, I was thinking [indiscernible]...

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

No, I understand. And my answer stands that we just don't launch new products. When we're ready to launch, the customers will be the first to hear about it. It is commercially sensitive. But you can assume we do have a pipeline and we -- and part of the second year price rise reflects what we know we're going to be bringing to market in the second half of FY '22. But obviously, we won't announce that in advance.In terms of Financial Services, look, we do have a goal to write 1 in 10 mortgages in the country. We think that's absolutely achievable. When we bring Mortgage Choice and Smartline together, we do have about 6% of the market that -- but we think there's a long way we can go. As I said in my remarks, we've just launched the ability for consumers to track their loans with us. Our ambition is to be able to contact consumers basically every month and confirm that they've still got the best product in the market for them. But when those circumstances change, we're there to help you convert to a better product and a better advantage for them. So there are various ways to do that. We want to continue to digitize the process both for people going direct to banks and for those who want to go through to consumers.And so look, we're -- it's a very exciting space for us, and we think it's an ambition to kind of do 1 in 10 mortgages in this country.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Paul Mason from E&P.

[Paul Mason, Executive Director of Technology]

Just a quick one on VPAPay. I'm just wondering if you could talk through sort of your strategy around getting that onto the marketing list for agents. I mean, from what I understand, these products, they usually sort of end up contracting independently at the moment. But now there's a relationship that you're sort of more aligned with sort of what you can sort of do around Premiere All contracting at the same time as the VPAPay contract or anything like that, that you're sort of thinking about.

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

Yes. So you're referring to CampaignAgent.

[Paul Mason, Executive Director of Technology]

Yes. The product side.

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

Yes, okay. Look, CampaignAgent is already a leading product in the market. And so we're kind of going in with what we think is the best product in the market by linking that into our Connect product and having that kind of part of the automated process where they can -- a consumer can pay on the spot through our digitized process through CampaignAgent or they can choose to defer the payment until later through CampaignAgent. We think that just gives our customers maximum flexibility in dealing with vendors. We wanted to just become part of the integrated process of the offering that agents can take to every vendor.

[Operator]

Your next question is a follow-up question from Entcho Raykovski from Crédit Suisse.

[Entcho Raykovski, Research Analyst]

Sorry to jump back on. I just wanted to follow up on my Developer question and perhaps how you're thinking about the upside. And I guess I don't want to dwell on this too much, but it looks like, obviously, strong property market, apartment approvals seem to be bumping up again. So is it likely that over the next couple of years, you'll see those high-yielding developments coming through?

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

Yes, sorry, I missed -- forgot to answer the second one. Janelle took over. I was so impressed with the answer, I moved on.

[Entcho Raykovski, Research Analyst]

It's probably a reflection of the length of my questions, so I'll take that on board.

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

No. Look, look, it is -- we're very pleased with the number of new developments coming on board. We have to acknowledge they are the smaller end still. And so while it's great that they're up and they are buying, obviously, products on site, those larger developments spend a lot more on things like display advertising, which is lucrative for us.If you look at the forecast by BIS Oxford, and they keep updating this monthly and it seems to change dramatically month-on-month, but they are showing the small recovery that we're seeing has been a small decline and then basically a big boom coming after that. I think we are getting into the situation after nearly 3 years of declines as that kind of supply-demand equation is now getting out of balance, and we are going to have to see construction recommence in the not-too-distant future, which will be very positive.I think the other factor that we -- it's hard to predict, though, is when is immigration going to kind of resume to the more normal levels, students coming back into more normal levels. I think if we get that kind of perfect situation of immigration, students are back and the supply-demand situation is better balance, it's going to be a great time for developers, but it's probably towards the back end of FY '22, I think.

[Entcho Raykovski, Research Analyst]

Okay. And if you -- as you're thinking about the benefit for REA, is that primarily a volume benefit? Or do you see a corresponding yield increase as well?

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

It's both, because if we go back to what I'll call more normalized conditions, we will see those larger projects start to come back. They're much high yielding. They buy a lot more of our product suite. They buy a lot more display advertising, and they buy it for longer. So it's volume and yield. And we've seen the reverse of that over the last 2 years. So we've been kind of wearing the reverse of that 2 years. I think we're going to see it reverse towards the back end of FY '22.

[Entcho Raykovski, Research Analyst]

Okay. And do you think there's some level of -- or some scope for price increases within that segment? Or is it just a mix shift, which is more likely to be a driver?

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

Look, we haven't put price changes through in that segment for many years. So look, I'm not going to forecast price changes as I sit here today. But if those conditions that I've spoken about do prevail at the back end of next financial year, then you would assume there may be some scope for us to look at our pricing.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to Owen Wilson for closing remarks.

[Owen James Wilson, CEO & Executive Director]

Look, I'd just like to thank everyone for taking the time to join us today. It's a very pleasing result. And I think we're set up for a really good finish to the year. We look forward to updating you again when we release the full year results. Thank you, everyone.