Operator
Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the REA Group Limited Full Year 2026 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Alice Bennett, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning and welcome, everyone. My name is Alice Bennett, Head of Investor Relations, and I'd like to thank you for joining REA Group's 2026 full-year results presentation. Before we commence, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of countries throughout Australia and recognize the continuing connection to lands, waters, and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to elders past and present. Today, you'll hear from REA's CEO, Cam McIntyre, and Andrew Kramer, REA's CFO. Cam will talk to our overarching financial performance and strategic highlights for the He will then hand over to Andrew to talk to our financial results in more depth. And following this, we'll be happy to take your questions. With that, I'll pass to Cam to get us started.
Thanks, Alice. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our call. We've had an excellent FY26 underpinned by a number of things, but in particular, double-digit yield growth. Product development's been moving forward at a great pace, which you'll see is creating tangible opportunities and adding to the value we deliver for our consumers, customers, and brokers alike. So let's jump into the detail. Look at the group financial result, core operations for the year saw revenue up 7% on PCP to $1.79 billion. EBITDA excluding Associates was up 12% on PCP to $1.09 billion. NPAT up 15% to $650 million and free cash flow was strong too, up 17% to $628 million. The board has determined to pay a final dividend of $1.73 per share. Together with the interim dividend, this represents a total dividend of $2.97 per share, fully franked, an increase of 20% on PCP. Alongside our operating performance, we maintained a disciplined approach to cost and capital management. We improved operational efficiency and we returned capital to shareholders through our $200 million share buyback program, reflecting the financial strength and the confidence that we have in the business. We evolved our well-established strategy during the year as well and we enter a new chapter from a position of strength. Our strategy for the years ahead builds on the success of the past three decades and sharpens our focus on unlocking new growth. Our purpose remains clear and that is to change the way the world experiences property and as a technology data and AI they'll transform the industry we see significant opportunity to deliver even more value for consumers customers and brokers our strategy embraces our evolving landscape putting trust at the core underpinned by our strengths in deep relationships unparalleled data and better outcomes for our stakeholders We're focused on three enterprise-wide missions to reinvent property experiences, scale our growth engines and accelerate the organisation. We'll dive a little bit more into this strategy on our Investor Day, which we're planning for in October this year. Now, before we move into our operational highlights, I'd like to touch on the market conditions at present. As you can see on the chart on the left, listing volumes in the June quarter strengthened against softer comps, with strong growth in all capital cities. The chart on the right highlights the return to more normalised market conditions in the last three years. The fluctuating listing volumes between FY19 and FY23 reflect the impact of the Royal Commission, the pandemic and successive interest rate hikes. The more stable market in FY26 supported vendor confidence with buy listings in line with prior year's strong volumes and around 1% below FY18. On the buy side, inquiry levels remained strong in FY26, although the last three interest rate rises in the second half, capital gains tax changes and negative gearing changes created some uncertainty, which flowed through to inquiry volumes towards the very end of the financial year. Despite all this, though, properties continued to sell at a relatively typical rate in most capital cities, highlighting some continued strength in underlying demand. Looking at property pricing in the chart on the left of this slide, and as you can see here, prices remain significantly higher than recent years in all capital cities except Melbourne. The softening in buyer inquiry volumes mentioned earlier that we saw in Q4 did begin to impact price growth in the quarter. Looking at the right side of the slide, the rental market remains challenging for tenants with national rents reaching new highs in the June quarter. Rental vacancies have slightly increased which will support tenants, however an anticipated decrease in investor demand is likely to put renewed pressure on rents. Just looking at some of our business highlights for the year, and FY26 was a transformative year where we rapidly extended our AI capability and delivered new experiences and products for our consumers, customers and brokers, which I'll talk to you a little bit more about in a moment. Our personalised and immersive experiences supported a record 12.7 million monthly realestate.com.au visitors and continued to deepen consumer engagement. 5.2 million unique properties are now tracked by their owners on our platform. We also achieved record premier plus penetration in residential and recorded elite plus step penetration in commercial at record levels as well. And finally last month we announced the sale of our remaining Indian business housing.com to Auram PropTech. Auram has strong capability and local market knowledge making it well-placed to build on the foundations the Indian team have established over time. Taking a closer look at our audience levels and high quality engagement, more people than ever visited our flagship site in FY26, a record 12.7 million people visited out the platform each month, that's 5.2 million more than our nearest competitor. The real value in our large-scale audience lies in the deep engagement with our consumers. The size of our audience has continued to grow over the last two years and key engagement metrics have also strengthened. The quality of the realestate.com.au experience and the strength of our brand ensures Australians continually return to our platform. Consumers spend more time on our platform than any other property site and across the year we achieved a record 146 million average monthly visits. Some of the key sources of our competitive advantage include the size of our audience, our data which fuels our AI experiences and firmly positions REA as a leading beneficiary of artificial intelligence. REA has the largest and most engaged property audience in the country, our unique consumer intent and behavioural data that feeds into each of the proprietary data sets we have is highlighted on this slide. Everyone can see our listings but only REA can see what's underneath. Our compounding data sets include unmatched consumer intent and behaviour, rich property records, the deepest listing and transaction outcomes, the most comprehensive agent workflow and performance data, and unique finance and affordability data. Turning to our consumer experience highlights, and our goal to convert our market-leading audience into members remains. Members are more likely to take a high-value action, enhancing the value delivered to our customers. New AI-powered features, immersive experiences, plus rich data and content enhanced the membership experience in FY26 and supported a 14% growth in our membership base on PCP. Powered by our proprietary data, the new AI Assistant experience enables members to ask us anything about property during their search. Search on our platform evolves throughout the year from natural language to conversational and now the AI Assistant has the power to support people right through the property journey. Consumers can discover properties, check affordability, evaluate, compare and take action. Members share more about their property objectives with this intelligent search experience and these insights enable us to better meet their needs. It's now available to all members with over 20% of sessions converting to a high value action such as saving or sharing a listing. Ultimately the AI assistant experience will support the delivery of more valuable leads to our customers. Property seekers are increasingly seeking more immersive and informative search experiences. Our visualization strategy is designed to deeply engage consumers in our content. The upload of iGUIDE 3D tours is accelerating with around 180 cameras now in market. The feedback from customers continues to be positive particularly around the superior experience with near zero load time for iGUIDE onto our platform. Turning now to customers and the social media style video hub on our app home screen evolved in July to include listing videos. This is a powerful and high exposure engagement feature for Premiere Plus and Lux listings and it was a key component of our FY27 re-contracting. The hub has been a driver in accelerating native video views with over 2.9 million video hub views since the feature launched in November. Our audience extension offering audience maximizer puts listings in front of active buyers wherever they browse online. Penetration more than doubled on PCP with customers recognising the value in our click-based packages and price points and the new features such as automated video content. And on the right uptake in our high performance listing solution LUX continues to accelerate. Immersive content features, improved homepage targeting and new packages all underpinned increasing penetration. Looking at highlights from our customer platforms and services. In the fourth quarter, we commenced the rollout of our new agentic chat capability in our self-service Ignite platform called Campaign Assist. The feature combines consumer intent and prop track powered AVM data to provide customers with strategic recommendations to boost the performance of a listing. Enhanced brand exposure and access to exclusive products and tools underpin the value of our top tier pro subscription. Agency groups continue to recognize this with several customer groups signing enterprise-wide pro agreements in FY26. The total number of customers with a pro subscription also more than doubled on the prior year. Underpinning the value for all our customers is access to our Ignite platform and monthly active users increased 17% on PCP. Our commercial platform delivered record audience with 2.9 million Australians visiting out the platform on average each month. The experiences, features and engaging content supported audience growth including points of interest maps on listings, new demographic data and the integration of iGUIDE. Our top-tier commercial product Elite Plus achieved record penetration and the value of Ignite continued to increase. Almost 90% of commercial agencies have been onboarded to Ignite and we saw a hundred and nine percent PCP growth in monthly active users. Turning to financial services and product innovation and brand investment supported good revenue growth here. Enhancements in our finance experience on our platform supported the delivery of quality leads to mortgage choice brokers with settlements from REA leads up 30% on PCP. Continued investment in our core broking platforms and in AI training and tools delivered greater value too with 50% of our brokers now using AI agents to efficiently automate the processes. In June we acquired a 70% interest in commercial finance brokerage Simplicity, diversifying our financial services business. REA is an AI prime organisation and in FY26 we introduced a coordinated approach to expanding AI tools and scaling agent augmented teams that we're calling Flowlab. Flowlab experimentation is re-engineering product delivery at REA and is supporting the expansion of our suite of AI tools and platforms that optimise return on investment. Utilising Agentic AI throughout product development end-to-end, we're able to validate what works and what doesn't within hours. Previously, this would take weeks or months. The initial trial within our real-time business accelerated speed with the Agentic first team delivering planned work 2.6 times faster. We think this is just the start and in FY27 we'll continue to scale this experiment with our agent augmented team model across our tech workforce. Rewiring our engineering teams through FlowLab is beginning to release capacity of our people and will enable us to reinvest in our highest value growth priorities. It supports faster time to market, capacity to invest in emerging revenue streams, while opening opportunities to invest in new TAMs and providing more flex in our cost base. Looking at some of our international highlights, and we announced the acquisition of a controlling stake in Canadian-based Planetaire, Inc., the maker of iGUIDE. That was last October. In FY26, iGUIDE grew locally in local currency revenues by 26% with growth in its residential, construction and commercial markets. In the US market, REA has a 20% interest in Move, operator of Realtor.com. Realtor is rapidly scaling its AI-first consumer experience as well. its new conversational tool is proving highly engaging for serious buyers with consumers treating the product as a trusted advisor rather than just a traditional search tool. Move revenues increased 11% and its equity accounted loss of 14 million reflected a 5 million dollar improvement on prior year. Before I hand over to Andrew I'd like to share a few comments on the market as we look ahead. Market fundamentals remain solid and we can see consumers are still there closely monitoring the market throughout traffic and engagement. Interest rates however are the biggest factor contributing to current market uncertainty at the moment. It's likely that we're at or near the peak of the interest rate cycle we believe but the most recent rate rises along with the federal government budget tax changes have impacted by a sentiment in recent months. In listings, Sydney and Melbourne led new listings volumes in FY26, but we're starting to see Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide outperform. The market is still recalibrating post-budget, but once the dust settles and interest rates stabilise, we expect consumer confidence to improve and buyers to become more active, particularly looking towards H2. And finally REA has entered the new financial year with a healthy balance sheet, strong product pipeline, sustained strength in our core business and a talented team doing an excellent job. And with that I'll now hand over to Mr. Cramer to take us through the financials in more detail.
Thank you Cam and good morning everyone. REA has delivered excellent full year results with a With a focus on controlling the controllables, we've been able to drive value to our customers, double-digit yield growth, a heightened focus on cost management, and a renewed discipline around capital allocation. Taken together, this has seen REA-delivered strong double-digit EPS growth, despite flat listings across the year. It has also seen us exit REA India and the resultant improvement in EPS and free cash flow. From our co-operations, revenue increased 7% to $1.79 billion. EBITDA, excluding associates, of $1.09 billion was up 12%. NPAT of $650 million was up 15%. EPS of $4.93 was up 15%. And free cash flow of $628 million was up 17%. As CFO, it is pleasing to see those prior corresponding period growth rates increase as we move from revenue, EBITDA, and down to NPAT and free cash flow. With the July announcement of the sale of housing.com, India is now treated as a discontinued business. If we look at the performance of fiscal 26 on a continuing business basis, then revenue and EBITDA increased 12%, NPAT and EPS 14%, and free cash flow 18%. Pleasingly, REA has delivered EPS growth through the cycle, with an EPSK go of 12% over the last four years, despite fiscal 23 being one of the worst cyclical downturns we have experienced in Australia. Slide 25 outlines both our core financial results, which include India, and our results on a continuing business basis, with India excluded. Slide 26 provides a summary of the reconciliation between the core and statutory results with several one-off items excluded. The most material adjustments are the $111 million write-down of REA India in Fiscal 26, and the $117 million impairment reversal on the divestiture of Property Guru in Fiscal 25. Turning to slide 27, our Australian residential business had another strong year, delivering 12% revenue growth. National buy listings were flat across Fiscal 26 with growth rates improving each quarter as comparables became easier. The flat outcome was marginally better than our anticipated range of negative 1 to negative 3%, reflecting a stronger than expected fourth quarter. As a result, we've seen revenue deferrals of 1% into Q1 fiscal 27. While Sydney and Melbourne outperformed the broader market in fiscal 26, up 3% and 4% respectively, pleasingly we saw a recovery in other markets during the fourth quarter. Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide were up a combined 17%, while Melbourne and Sydney were up eight. Buy yield was strong, up 13% and in line with our guidance. This was driven by a 7% average Premier Plus price rise, growth in add-ons, AMAX in particular but also LUX, increased subscription revenues and increased depth penetration. GeoMix had a neutral impact across the full year, resulting in controllable yield being in line with reported buy yield at 13%. However, as is often the case, GeoMix was volatile during the year, with Q1 neutral, Q2 up 2%, Q3 up 1%, and in Q4 we saw GeoMix turn negative as markets like Brisbane and Perth recovered and outpaced Melbourne and Sydney. GeoMix was down 2% in Q4. The following slide shows both the penetration and mix of paid listings in the residential business, together with the penetration of the audience maximiser and Lux add-ons. Pleasingly, we saw continued growth in overall debt penetration and continued tiering up to Premier Plus. Performance of our social media product, Audience Maximizer, was also very strong, with the introduction of new tiers and bundles resulting in penetration more than doubling in Fiscal 26. While it is still early days for Lux, we've seen penetration more than triple, and we continue to see Lux taken up across properties of all values. Around 70% of Lux's listings today are on properties with a value of less than $3 million. And of those, more than 15% on properties with a value below the $1 million mark. Commercial and new homes revenue growth almost hit double digits for the full year, delivering 9% revenue growth on the prior corresponding period up to $238 million of combined revenue. Commercial revenue increased by 10%, with yield growth driven by an average 7% price rise and increased debt penetration. Listings were also a positive driver up 2% for the year. Pleasingly, we saw growth in all major asset classes, including office, industrial, and retail. New homes revenue was up 9% on the prior corresponding period, driven by a 6% increase in project profile volumes, growth in average yield, and high display revenues. Financial services, led by Anthony Waldron and his talented team, has had an excellent year, with revenue up 11% to $114 million, and EBITDA increasing 20% year over year. Mortgage Choice revenues were up 10%, benefiting from a 13% increase in settlements, partially offset by higher broker payout rates. Proctrack revenues grew 13% through new customer data contracts. The Financial Services segment also benefited from One Month of Simplicity, the commercial broking business we acquired in June 2026. Turning now to our margin, the slide highlights the continuous improvement in Australia's operating EBITDA margin over the the last four years, with our margin increasing to close to 66% in Fiscal 26. This has been driven by double-digit revenue growth in Australia, up 11% this year, and a deceleration of cost growth to 7%, reflecting tighter cost management in the second half of the year. The differential between Australian Revenue and Australian Cost KGARs, or JAWS, is as wide as it has been at these revenue growth rates since 2021. We will continue to invest in the business as top-line revenue growth is paramount, but we will continue to be disciplined in relation to costs. Australia's 7% operating cost growth included double-digit growth in cost of goods sold in marketing and in technology, offset by moderation in labour cost growth. Labour cost growth slowed to 3% across the full year, with typical wage inflation offset by a modest reduction in headcount and the ongoing structural shift to utilise our centres of excellence in Manila and Cyber City India. The increase in COGS reflected the more than doubling in penetration of our audience maximiser social media add-on. Higher marketing costs were in part due to the timing of Ready25, which was not in the prior year, and the investment made in our new Australian Open sponsorship. As expected, technology costs increased due to price rises and investment in AI. Excluding COGS, Australian operating costs increased only 5%. REA has had a strong and consistent track record of investment in product development to drive better consumer experiences and deliver more value to our customers. In fiscal 26, this investment included a number of new products and experiences across all lines of business, with a focus on AI, video and platform health. CapEx to revenue in Australia was 7.6% in Fiscal 26 and we anticipate Fiscal 27 to again be within our stated 7% to 9% target range. Turning to slide 34 in our cash position, we ended the year with a cash balance of $366 million. The group delivered free cash flow of $628 million, up 17%. This allowed us to continue to invest in the business both organically and inorganically and to deliver strong shareholder returns with $546 million returned to shareholders during the year, comprising of REA's inaugural share buyback of $200 million with stock bought back at a volume weighted average price of $159 and $346 million returned by dividends paid during the year. We are also pleased to announce an increase in our final dividend by 25% to bring our full year dividend to $2.97, an increase of 20% for the full year. Pleasingly, the growth in dividends outpaced the growth in EPS as we increased returns to shareholders in the form of a higher dividend payout ratio. Our balance sheet is incredibly healthy, and we believe we are balancing nicely returning capital to our shareholders while also maintaining flexibility and optionality for future growth opportunities. Finally, turning to the outlook for fiscal 27. Owing to higher than expected listings in Q4 fiscal 26, new national buyer listings are anticipated to be flat to down low single digits in fiscal 27. July listings were 2% lower on the prior corresponding period but in line with the eight-year average. Combined Melbourne and Sydney listings declined by 16% while Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide increased by 13%. The group anticipates controllable residential buyer yield growth excluding the impact of geographical mix in the low double digits driven by an 8% Premier Plus price rise and growth in add-ons. As is often the case, geomix across the full year will be the main swing factor on where reported fiscal 27 buy yield ultimately lands. We will continue to target operational margin expansion. Excluding the iGUIDE and Simplicity Acquisitions, XM&A, operating costs are expected to increase mid-single digits for both Australia and the group. Group operating costs, including M&A, are expected to increase mid to high single digits in Fiscal 27 on a continuing business basis, excluding India, off a base of $609 million in Fiscal 26. Contributions from associates are expected to improve modestly compared to the prior corresponding period. In closing, I wanted to reiterate how pleased we are with these results. The results are a product of the thoughtfulness, the focus, the discipline, and the hard work of a very strong team at REA. For the second year in a row, REA has delivered strong double-digit EPS growth in a broadly flat listings environment. Rest assured, we will continue to execute our strategy, we'll continue to focus on controlling the controllables, and we'll continue to invest prudently for the long term. I trust you all got a sense earlier from Cam on just how excited we all are by the new opportunities we see leveraging AI to enhance the experiences of our consumers, our customers our brokers and our employees we are really looking forward to taking you through all these things in more detail during our investor day in october operator could we please open the line for any questions thank you as a reminder to ask a question please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced to withdraw your question please press star one one again in fairness to all we ask that you please limit yourself to three questions One moment for our first question.
Operator
Our first question is going to come from the line of Encho Rankofsky with E&P. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, Cam. Morning, Andrew. My first question is just around the guidance. And I suppose the one element that you haven't specifically guided on, of course, I'm going to pick on it, is the potential geomix impact into FY27. and I appreciate there's probably only so much visibility you've got but are you able to give us any colour on how you're thinking about it in your budgets? I guess if we'll look at the recent periods it was most pronounced in FY23 at minus 5%. I guess I'm interested in whether you think it could be as bad as that number or whether you think it'll be a more moderate negative impact perhaps. Perhaps I've got a couple of others, but I might wait for the answer to that one first.
Thanks, Anshah. I'll take that one. You're right. It is difficult to forecast geographical mix, and Cam and I have been focused on providing guidance around the things that we can control, so controlling the controllables. As it relates to germ mix, your memory is correct. In fiscal 23, we've had it down negative 5%, but 24, it was plus 3, fiscal 25, plus 1, and last year was flat. And even in the year that we've just had, you know, it bounced around, started at zero, plus two, plus one, and then finished the year at negative two. So I guess, you know, the key takeaway is it is volatile. And, you know, it's not something that we have a great sense about at this stage. And we'll kind of see how the, you know, the fiscal 27 year plays out.
Okay, got it. And then on the OPEX side, so you've reaffirmed the targets for operational margin expansion. I suppose if I think about the delta between revenue and OPEX growth, do you see that as limited in any way? I'm just conscious that, you know, in the past the company had talked about a 1% to 3% difference between revenue growth and OPEX growth. In your mind, does that still hold? You obviously did a bit better than FY26, but just how are you thinking about that delta between those numbers?
It's a good question, Encho. So you're right, in fiscal 26, the differential is four percentage points, and it's as wide as it has been at that revenue growth level since fiscal 21. So really, really, really happy how the business took on that approach to cost in fiscal 26. and our guidance of fiscal 27 is as low on cost as it has has ever has been mid single digits when you strip out you know india and and you know the impacts of ham and i we feel very comfortable um you know being able to to to make that guidance to market we have levers at our disposal you know the offshore um centers of excellence we have in manila and cyber city india you know give up give us optionality as does um you know flow lab which which can talk to you a little bit about and we look forward to talking about more at our Investor Day. That also gives us the opportunity to go faster, which we're doing, and that's really the focus. But as needed, that could also allow us to drop some efficiency at the bottom line. So we feel very comfortable with the commitment to operational margin expansion.
Cool. Thanks, Andrew. Just a final one. From a capital management point of view, so you haven't reloaded the bar back. Can you talk to the rationale for that? I mean, I know you talked about optionality, But obviously, you've got a pretty good cash balance. And you also have a substantial franking credits balance. I think it's over $1.1 billion at the moment. So maybe can you comment on whether the board has considered a special dividend as an option?
Sure, Andrew. I mean, the buyback was new for us. So that was our inaugural buyback. We're really happy with the execution. We bought back $200 million of stock at around $159. So it was very well done. And you would have noticed in the release this morning that we increased the final dividend by 25%. So the payout ratio is up at 60%. So we felt like with that combination of things, we're returning just under $550 million of cash to shareholders in the year. The balance sheet's pristine. It's really healthy. We're proud of where that sits, and we think it gives us a great deal of optionality. The franking credit question is an interesting one, too. You're right, we have more than a billion dollars of franking credits. I mean, there's a slight nuance to the buyback, given the low paid-in capital that we have at REA, owing to the heritage of the company. When we buy back stock beyond that level, we have to stream, for every dollar we buy back, 42.9 cents of those frank credits get streamed to the ATO and don't get returned to shareholders. So it's something we're mindful when we think about the buyback, and it absolutely makes frank dividends probably comparatively more attractive, all things considered.
Okay, that's good, Carla.
Operator
Thank you. And one moment for our next question. Our next question will be from the line of Eric Choi with Byron Joey. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, morning, guys. Could I please ask three as well? Maybe one on guidance, one on kind of product and new monetization leaders, and maybe just a follow-up on costs. But just the first one. So if I look at FI27, relative to the 650 MPAT that you guys did in FI26, consensus is only assuming that grows around 11% to, say, 720 next year. But I think with all the information you've given us today, it suggests it should be more like 19% to 20% MPAT growth into FI27. And I just wanted to check the very, very simple logic with you, because if you look at your Australian business, it grew EBITDA by $130 million in FI26. And then into FI27, there's going to be puts and takes in Australia. Listings might be a bit worse, but your costs is better as well. So, like, conceivably, the Australian business could grow $130 million at EBITDA again, which is kind of $90 million post-tax. And so that would be 14% impact growth just from Australia already. And then we know India is kind of like 5% to 6% impact creative. And then you've said other associates are also going to improve a bit. Like you add all that up, very simple bridge, you're getting 19% to 20% impact growth to 770 plus next year. Should I go, sorry, should I pause there?
Yeah, why don't you pause there? Because there's a little bit in that to unpack, Eric. If I work my way bottom up, you're right, we've gotten guided to associate losses, improving India will be a discontinued operation. So it gets stripped out of the historical period as well as fiscal 27 going forward. So you have to look at the statutory accounts to see the jump that you're describing. You won't see it in our continuing ops disclosures. But I think that your map is about right on the benefits. You know, that was a drag on EBITDA and free cash flow and having that out of the business will give us that uplift on NPAT, so that's fair. You know, using 26 as a base, I won't comment on your $130 million EBITDA, but in relation to the outlook, listings were flat in fiscal 26, and I guess we're probably, owing to the fast finish to fiscal 26, we're guiding fiscal 27 to be flat and down a little bit. On yield, you know, we finished at 13% to fiscal 26. We're guiding to low double digits there. So you're right that it's sort of in a similar ballpark. And on costs, we are guiding to be a little bit tighter. So I think your logic makes good sense, but I'm not going to comment on your math and the output, but I think your assumptions are sound.
Awesome. Thanks, Andrew. Second one, promise it's less convoluted. just on product and potential new monetization levers, maybe second half 27, maybe in FI28. But like Scout24 in May, they launched Agentic OS. You've sort of announced AI assistant campaign agent today and some of that's going to go into your Ignite product. So my question was, could these be levers to drive either a higher subscription revenue growth or B, could you use those as incentives to drive, say, Lux or AMAX uptake in exchange for subscription discounts going forward?
Yeah, thanks, Eric. I'm happy to take that question. Look, we're really happy with the Campaign Assist product. We think it's a great product that puts a fantastic tool in the hands of our customers using our PropTrack and AMV data. I mean, clearly it gives customers the opportunity to upsell or manage campaign performance throughout a campaign and provide the opportunity to engage vendors at different points in time. So it's very early days with it in terms of the value that it adds in terms of subs and so on. Yeah, I think that's too early to call from our perspective. we're just happy to have it out there happy to have it in the hands of our customers and see how it performs and we'll continue to tweak and evolve it but we're very excited about it.
Legend thanks Cam. And then last one maybe for you Cam or Andrew just to follow up on cost I think Andrew you're sort of intimating JAWS is higher than history but that probably reflects say a greater structural focus on efficiencies and it's not just a cyclical response so just wanted to confirm that but but if if that's the case is the inference also if listings in fi27 are worse than say you're flat to low single digit declines then presumably you'd also take that cost guidance or there's scope to take that cost guidance lower as well yeah um thanks eric uh as well as the fiscal 26 we're really happy with the cost controls and the way the business approach approach cost um
What was probably a little unexpected was how well the business finished from a listing perspective. So that probably widened the jaws a little bit towards the end of fiscal 26. We're committing to open jaws or operational margin expansion, we're calling it, and we've guided the market to low or to mid single digit cost growth lower than what it has been historically. And I think, you know, as Enshon and I discussed a little bit earlier, we have some levers at our disposal that gives us confidence, you know, in that if listings are down, then we can adjust costs accordingly. But what I would say, and it's really important, is that, you know, growing and investing in that top line is paramount for this business. And so what we won't do is short-term the business or do anything that impacts, you know, product development or things or grow to the top line in managing costs. I want to be really clear on that.
Nice one. Good result, by the way. Thanks.
Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Eric.
Operator
Thank you. And one moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Roger Samuel with Jefferies Australia. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, morning all. Just two questions from me. First one, can you remind us how long can a Premier Plus listing last on the website or the app? And if the property is not sold, then can the customer relist it and how much do you have to pay for it?
Thanks, thanks, Roger. I'll do that question. So, look, I mean, a Premier Plus listing has unlimited days on site and if the property fails to sell and then we do offer customers the opportunity to pull the listing down and then relist it at a later date up to three months post that. But I guess the crucial thing to note here is that this will only count as one listing if that's the crux of your question.
Yeah, that's right. And when they're relisted, is there a fee that they have to pay?
No, not if it's the same agent. If it goes to a different agent down the track then it's discounted by 50%.
Okay, cool. And my second question is just on the appetite for more depth listings or add-on products, even as it's getting more and more difficult to start a property. Are you seeing any increased uptake in the last few months? You mentioned about the slowdown in the buy inquiry within the June quarter.
Yeah, I guess I've been around these platforms for a long time and what you tend to see when things get a little bit more challenging, depth becomes a real opportunity for vendors to stand out. So intuitively, I guess we believe that while the market might be a little bit more challenged, it does provide us with more opportunity to sell more depth. So I guess that's a little bit of a tailwind.
Operator
Thank you. And one moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Sriharsh Singh with Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, Cam, Andrew. A couple of questions from me on yield. First, on the FI27 guidance of low double-digit yield growth. So, besides price increase, which of the add-on products will contribute the most to yield growth, in your view, between Amex, Lux, and Pro subscriptions, or is there something else which could be contributing a little bit on the margin? Second question, just thinking slightly, or another way to ask you about the geomix, the potential geomix impact into FI27. Look, based on our tracking and some data, Sydney and Melbourne listings are up 12% to 15% versus long-term average. So my question is, if Sydney and Melbourne listings were to normalize towards the long-term average. What kind of a geomix drag would that entail? Thanks.
I think that's one for me, Shiraz. So firstly, on the yield, the fiscal 27, the 8% Premier Plus price rise is the largest contributor to the yield. And then add-ons, just like fiscal 26, are the next most material contributor, but the mix is different. So whereas last year was AMAX and then a little Lux, this coming fiscal year, Lux will be a much larger contributor to yield than AMAX, but AMAX will still be a positive contributor too. We'll probably get a little bit from penetration perhaps too, but that'll be much less material. And we didn't put the subscription price up for our agent community, and so that'll be a less material contributor, albeit we will see gradual uptick of the pro subscription too, which will help a little. As it relates to GEO, it's a really interesting question and something we're doing, thinking about too. So it's not just the Sydney and Melbourne relativity. It's not as simple as that, Shiraj. So it depends on the communities within those markets and then the pricing within those cities. And then it also depends on for the rest of Australia when we compare the cities to Melbourne and Sydney. If Brisbane is a large contributor, that's generally a positive given the pricing in that city compared to, say, rural Australia. So there's a few different, you know, elements at play there. To be specific in answering your question, if listings in Melbourne and Sydney did come back towards historical averages, you know, we would see an element of negative yield from geomix, but that could well be offset by, you know, uptick in other cities like Brisbane, as I mentioned.
Super clear. If I can sneak in one more. Is LLM traffic as a share of total traffic for you? Is that rising or is it also flattening out for you over the last six months?
No, thanks, Rihash. I mean, the answer to that question is pretty simple. It's flat and it's well and truly south of 1% of our traffic.
That's great. No worries. Thanks, Rehash.
Operator
And thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Lucy Huang with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Kim and Andrew. I've just got two questions as well. So just the first one, are you able to give us a sense as to how seller leads have trended across the platform? And I'm also wondering whether you're starting to see a bit of a correlation between seller leads as a leading indicator for listing volumes?
Yeah, great question, Lucy. So in relation to seller leads, so I'd say seller leads in July, and that's probably the best comp to your question. I mean, my view is seller leads are a lead indicator of what we expect to see over the coming months as consumers think about putting their properties up for sale. and I'd say seller leads have been consistent with what we saw in listing volume in July as well. So pretty flat this month in July.
Yeah, so based on what you can see, it looks like the trend is still kind of stable at this point in time through the seller lead. Yeah, that's exactly right. And then just my second question around kind of like locks take up and understand that you've kind of put out some incentives for agents to contract or make commitments to put more listings onto LUX into FI27. Any colour you can shed on what proportion of agents have actually signed on to this commitment? And I know it's early days in the year, but just any signs that we are seeing kind of LUX take up, increasing?
No, I think probably the only colour I can really give you is we were really happy with the Lux sign-ups over recent months and the product's in a really good spot. So that along with AMAX, we've been really pleased with.
Just to follow up to that, will you be forcing agents to pay for the Lux commitments through the year even if, say, they don't choose to upgrade up to 20% or do you think you'll keep it fairly, I guess, you know, just let it go in a way for this year, even if they've committed to it.
Sorry, I didn't quite hear that. Can you repeat the question?
Sorry, just in terms of LUX commitment, because I think some agencies will be committing up to 20% of listings onto LUX. So if they don't list up to 20%, will you make a decision to charge them anyway or is the intention to just treat it as an aspiration?
Look, I think if they've made a commitment, that's the commitment they've signed up to. That's how we operate. So, yes.
Operator
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Lackland Elliott with Macquarie. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for the question. I just wanted to follow up. I think we spoke about capital allocation earlier, but just specifically on how you're thinking about M&A now that you've kind of streamlined the business and you've got that healthy cash balance. Is it going to be more of a bolt-on situation or are there other kind of big opportunities that you're considering? Just any colour on that would be great. Thanks.
Yes, thanks for the question. I'm happy to take that one. I guess when it comes to M&A, it's an opportunity sort of discussion decision process. it comes down to the size of the potential opportunity, where it's located, familiarity with it, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not really a one-size-fits-all. And I think you'll find that over the last nine months or so, we've had certainly plenty to keep us busy here. and I wouldn't say M&A's been at the top of the list of things to do outside of India, but certainly we remain an acquisitive business and are always looking out for opportunities as they might arise.
Great, thanks. And then maybe just switching gears a little bit, just wanted to follow up on that volume guidance. You've given the guidance for flights are down low-seal digits, But any kind of colour on how you're kind of thinking about the cadence first half and second half and then even kind of beyond that? Yeah, any colour there would be really greatly appreciated.
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, the guidance was partly a result of the really strong finish to fiscal 26. So if we think about that fourth quarter of 26, that's going to be a tricky fourth quarter for us in fiscal 27, a positive tailwind for 26, but then it makes it a harder fourth quarter for fiscal 27. Otherwise, you know, we're guiding to, you know, flat to down. At the moment, listings are holding up well, but as we know, given the historical volatility month to month, quarter to quarter, it's probably a little bit early to try and think too much about phasing at this stage in Auckland.
Great. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Hold on for our next question, please. Our next question will be from Shiraj Ahmed with Citigroup. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Cam and Andrew. Cam, maybe two questions for you and one for Andrew. Cam, first one, can you just touch on competitive dynamics? Notice that your unique audience lead slipped a bit in the second half. Just keen to hear what you're seeing and how you're thinking about this. And second thing, in terms of AI, you're talking about new TAM and new addressable opportunities. Can you just elaborate on that? And Andrew, in terms of yield growth for next year, I think about fourth quarter, if you exclude Geomix, would have been 12% or so. Seems like, as you said, Lux will be a bigger driver. Do you think FY27 can be better than that fourth quarter as a baseline before Geomix?
So I'll take the first two. And so I'll start with the second one first. So look, in terms of TAM, it's early days with some of those AI product launches that we've got now out in play. But I guess, you know, particularly with the AI assistant, as those conversations with consumers evolve, then that will expose through those conversations opportunities for us to explore. But, you know, if you think about the usual things around building pest inspections, et cetera, et cetera, I mean, yeah, there's those opportunities that exist that we can see immediately. but that will evolve over time. In terms of traffic, I mean, we're extremely happy with where our traffic's at at the moment. You would have seen in the slide deck where we continue to do record traffic levels over 12.5 million unique visitors a month coming to the site, nearly 150 million sessions and in terms of our traffic lead over our next nearest competitor. I mean, it's exceptionally strong. It will go up and down a little bit month over month, but it's still exceptionally strong. And I guess that's probably how we think about it.
Andrew, just trying to do it.
Is there a question, Brandon?
I'll do the third question.
Yeah, just trying to do it.
Yeah, so it's interesting. Do you have any questions, Saraj? When you think about the fourth quarter, your sense of the numbers is correct. Is it the mix a little bit different? So buy yield for the fourth quarter in isolation was 11%, and the mix was largely price, which is very material, but also penetration and add-ons. Add-ons was the second most material, and that was coming from AMAX and LUX, but AMAX more material and LUX less material, and then geomix was negative 2% for the fourth quarter. As we roll forward, I think your sense of the quantum of yield is probably fair. It's in line with our low double-digit guidance. It's just I think the mix will be a little bit different. As I said, Lux will be a larger contributor than AMAX. Penetration, perhaps less so this fiscal year, and GeoMix will be potentially a drag, at least at this early stage. Got it. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. And one moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Fraser McLeish with MST. Mark, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, great. Just a quick one from me. just on financial services business, Cam. And I think the banks are seeing pretty big drop-off in loan applications at the moment. And so, yeah, any help on how you're thinking about that business for 27 would be helpful.
Yeah, no, thanks. Thanks, Fraser, for the question. Look, I mean, I would say to you that over the last couple of months, We sort of saw similar in terms of lead volumes and loan applications. What we're seeing now is, I guess, the gap that we saw a couple of months ago is starting to narrow. So, I mean, I think what that translates to is that consumers, customers are starting to settle and they are coming back to loan applications and we are gradually seeing improvements in application volumes. So I'd say a little bit early days, but we have definitely seen improvement there over recent weeks.
Operator
Thank you. I'm showing no further questions and I would like to hand the conference back over to Cam McIntyre for closing remarks.
Excellent. Thank you, everyone, for joining the call. today and look forward to catching up with you all over the course of the next few days. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
Operator
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.
