Offerpad Solutions - Q2 2024
August 5, 2024
Transcript
Moderator (participant)
Good afternoon! Thank you for attending today's Offerpad Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Jayla, and I'll be your moderator for today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call, with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, Taylor Giles, with Investor Relations. Taylor, you may proceed.
Taylor Giles (Head of Investor Relations)
Good afternoon, and welcome to Offerpad's second quarter 2024 earnings call. I'm joined today by Offerpad's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Brian Bair, and Chief Financial Officer, Peter Knag. During the call today, management will make forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, and events could differ significantly from management's expectations. Please refer to the risks, uncertainties, and other factors relating to the company's business described in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by applicable law, Offerpad does not intend to update or alter forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. On today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These measures exclude certain items discussed in our earnings release under the heading Non-GAAP Financial Measures.
The reconciliations of Offerpad's non-GAAP measures to their comparable GAAP measures are available in the financial tables of the second quarter earnings release on Offerpad's website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brian.
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you, Taylor, and thanks to everyone for joining today. Before we dive into updates, I'm excited to introduce our new CFO, Peter Knag. Peter joined us in June and has already been making significant contributions. Previously, he was EVP and CFO at Turner Broadcasting, the parent company of CNN, TNT, and TBS. With his financial expertise, leadership in business operations, and understanding of complex transactions, we are thrilled to have him and confident in the impact he'll have on our organization. Turning now to the second quarter, we delivered revenue within our guidance and another quarter of incremental improvement in Adjusted EBITDA, despite the continuing uncertainty of the macroeconomy and real estate market. We continue to make strides in building a long-term, profitable business that can weather any economy.
Highlights of the quarter include new Renovate clients like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, growth in the Agent Partner Program, enhancements in our technology, and streamlined operations that we expect will lead us to EBITDA profitability by year's end. These initiatives are positioning us for sustained profitability in any market. As for the housing market, we recognize this is a moment in time that must be carefully managed, but we remain focused on our long-term strategy. Over the past year and a half, we have constantly highlighted the volatility of interest rates and home affordability and the impact it has on the market. As a result, we have been very disciplined in our approach to inventory. In Q2, the market experienced a surge in volatility again, with mortgage rates surpassing 7%, softening buyer demand, which led to increased active inventory in most markets across the country.
Our disciplined approach has enabled us to navigate these challenges effectively, leading to an improved gross margin for the third consecutive quarter of 8.7%. Holding home short-term provides us with the flexibility to adapt quickly to market shifts. With the anticipation of the potential transition from a seller's market to a buyer's market, we've adjusted our buying criteria, focusing less on volume and more on wider margins per home. For example, on the acquisition side, we are leveraging our renovation strength to buy homes that need more renovations, enabling us to add more value to the home and ultimately boost margin. We've intentionally increased our assumed hold times and additionally focused on homes that have fewer actives in the area. Sellers continue to be very interested in our cash offer, and we've seen significant increase in the volume of requests from one quarter to the next.
Despite this acceleration, we are exercising stringent discipline in our property acquisitions during the market transition. We take pride in the strong demand for our services, and in turn, we provide the best possible experience for our customers. Our CSAT score of 93% reflects our unwavering commitment to exceptional service and underscores our dedication to exceeding customer expectations, solidifying our reputation as a trusted leader in the real estate market. Returning to the macroeconomy, absent a significant reduction in mortgage rates, we believe we'll be heading into a buyer's market. As one of the largest home buyers in America, this positions us well, especially as home sellers face longer marketing times, more competition, and seek quicker access to their liquidity. With inventory growing, this shift may present significant opportunities for our cash offer business.
As buyers continue to struggle with affordability and cost of living, Offerpad presents a compelling alternative to traditional resale homes. The average resale home on the market is over 30 years old, and many buyers can't afford the necessary upgrades or even basic refreshes after closing. Offerpad provides a cost-effective solution by offering newly renovated, move-in-ready homes. These homes are typically located in desirable locations, close to established schools, workplaces, restaurants, and amenities, making them more attractive option compared to new homes. New homes often come at a higher price point, longer wait times, and are typically situated farther from established amenities and services.... By choosing to purchase an Offerpad home, buyers can enjoy the benefits of a newly renovated home in a prime location without the higher cost and longer wait times, making Offerpad a strong alternative in today's challenging real estate market.
Our disciplined and patient approach within our buy box has proven successful in this evolving market. Our short-term strategy focuses on proactively adapting to changing real estate conditions by purchasing fewer properties and concentrating on higher margin opportunities. This approach positions us well for the anticipated shift to a buyer's market, where we believe our model will excel. Now, let's transition to discussing our other platform services, which have been instrumental in enhancing our margins. Offerpad Renovate leverages our expertise in operations and home renovations, offering timely, cost-efficient, and high-quality renovation services to B2B partners. I'm pleased to share that we've experienced another strong quarter for Renovate, with closed renovation projects growing over 300% versus the prior year, generating roughly $5 million in revenue. We're focused on building an extensive list of Renovate partners.
I'm excited to share that we've onboarded and are renovating homes for both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, along with a host of other new partners. We've officially launched our Reno Captain technology platform in multiple markets, giving our B2B clients real-time updates, enhanced transparency, and project management efficiency. We anticipate we will fully deploy the technology to all partners by the end of the quarter. While Reno Captain provides substantial efficiencies to third parties, it also produces significant cost efficiencies for Offerpad. We continue to expand our partnership channels. In June, we announced an integration with Realtor.com, allowing us to extend our reach and provide cash offers directly through their platform. This enables us to meet sellers where they are in their process. Utilizing our proprietary AVM, called CitrusValue, we generate an instant estimated offer for the customer. The integration has already produced excellent early results.
I'd like to now focus on our Agent Partner Program, or APP, that supports the agent community and represented sellers. Since announcing our revamped Agent Partner Program earlier this year, agent offer requests have surged, especially in cities such as Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, Phoenix, and Tampa. In quarter two, agent requests represented over 25% of total requests and produced nearly a third of our acquisitions, up from 19% a year ago. This is a key contributor to our ability to improve CAC at nearly 50% year-over-year, at our most efficient level since Q2 2022. To drive continuous engagement within our Partner Program, in Q2, we launched the Powered by Offerpad platform, an online portal for agents and agent teams who are part of our Pro and Max agent programs.
Agents can manage their Offerpad listings seamlessly by viewing all listing activities in a centralized location, including viewing cash offers, accessing detailed seller and property information, and managing leads and referrals efficiently. We have been investing in technology to make business more efficient. As a result of these investments, we have been able to streamline costs and improve margins, putting the business on a path towards delivering consistent improvements in Adjusted EBITDA and cash flow through the end of the year. When transactions return to more normal levels, we expect revenues to grow much more efficiently compared to expenses, given our focused investments in technology. In closing, I'm proud of our team's ability to innovate and navigate short-term challenges while planning for long-term success.
With an anticipated shortage of homes and an aging supply in the coming years, Offerpad is set to become a leader in delivering refreshed and renovated homes to buyers. Our strategic imperatives include focus on growth and product development in our asset-light services, offering end-to-end solutions for selling, buying, and expanding our partner ecosystem. This progress is driven by our dedicated employees and committed partners. I specifically want to thank the Offerpad technology and product teams for their continuous drive to improve and develop groundbreaking solutions. We will weather this difficult environment with discipline, patience, and preparation while positioning Offerpad for sustained profitability in any market condition. With that, I'll turn the call over to Peter.
Peter Knag (CFO)
Thank you, Brian. I'm pleased to join you for my first earnings call as CFO and look forward to getting to know our analysts and investors in the coming months, some of whom I've already met. I'm very grateful to James Grout, whose deep knowledge of our operations and financials while Interim CFO, allowed me to step in seamlessly. I'm thrilled to join Offerpad at such a pivotal time for the industry and the company. I was attracted to Offerpad's vision, our strong competitive position, and the opportunity to drive long-term profitable growth at scale. Additionally, I see significant opportunity to use my operational background and experience managing through tough environments and business model transitions. I will put these skills to work as we grow the asset-light business and leverage what continues to be a huge opportunity in our core cash offer business.
In the coming quarters, I'll be working closely with the teams to continue to identify key priorities to support our operational strategies and growth plans. First and foremost is our focus on further progress on operating efficiencies as we position the business to generate positive, Adjusted EBITDA and cash flow in any real estate environment. As Brian mentioned, we are operating with discipline in managing our inventory levels with a focus on optimizing ROI versus volume.... We're well positioned to do this, given the strength of our platform, our technology, our internal processes, and our seasoned real estate teams. Turning to Q2 financials, inventory remained in a strong, healthy position during the quarter. We had 989 homes in inventory, of which only 3.4% were owned over 180 days and not under contract for resale.
Homes sold in the quarter had an average time to cash of 106 days, an improvement of 7 days quarter-over-quarter, and in line with seasonal expectations. We expect time to cash to slightly increase in Q3, given current market dynamics and longer MLS average time on market. We acquired 831 homes in the quarter, up 3% compared to Q1 and roughly flat year-over-year. Given the persistent challenge of affordability and the current rate lock-in effect, we are taking a more disciplined approach to acquisitions. As we mentioned, in the second half of the year, we expect volume to decline compared to Q2 as we focus on wider spread opportunities and lower inventory levels.
While our cash offer is central to the business, we're pleased to see ongoing traction with our efforts to diversify our operating model as our asset-light services, including Renovate, Direct Plus, and our agent partnership programs, continue to grow. These services represented almost 25% of total contribution profit in Q2, and we expect this momentum to continue. In light of our focus here, we are now providing a revenue breakout between the cash offer and other services in our quarterly earnings supplement, published on our IR site beginning this quarter. In the second quarter, revenue was $251 million, which was within our guidance range, up 9% year-over-year and down 12% sequentially. We sold 742 homes, up 14% year-over-year and down 12% quarter-over-quarter.
Net loss was $13.8 million, a 21% improvement from Q1 and a 38% or $9 million improvement year-over-year. Importantly, gross margin expanded 80 basis points to 8.7% compared to the first quarter. Gross profit was $22 million, roughly flat year-over-year and down 3% quarter-over-quarter. This expansion in gross margin was driven by both the contribution margin in our cash offer business, as well as the strength of our asset-light services, which represented more than 34% of total transactions in the quarter. Operating expenses, excluding property-related selling and holding costs of $24.2 million, improved by $3.6 million versus the prior quarter as a result of our prior cost-out initiatives.
That's an improvement of 35% or $13.3 million year-over-year, driven by reduced advertising spend, leverage from our Agent Partner Program, and cost management activities. After lowering annual operating expenses by nearly $70 million in 2023, we continue to make good progress on our cost-out initiatives and now expect to save more than $35 million annually, up another $5 million from the $30 million target we previously shared. You should expect the cost-out improvements to continue. We'll have more to share on this in the coming quarters. Our focus on Contribution Margin and disciplined OpEx spend drove Adjusted EBITDA loss of $4.4 million, an improvement of 74% year-over-year and 38% quarter-over-quarter. Through continued revenue diversification and ongoing cost management, we expect sequential improvements in Adjusted EBITDA and cash flow through the end of the year.
Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the second quarter with $57 million in unrestricted cash and total liquidity of over $110 million when incorporating the estimated value of our carried inventory. We continued to have a strong roster of supportive lending partners. In the second quarter, we renewed and extended our largest and longest-tenured major credit facility into 2026. Additionally, we continue to have zero parent level debt. Moving now to guidance. In light of the lower industry-wide volumes we discussed, we expect third quarter revenue to be in the range of $185 million-$225 million, supported by 550-650 homes sold. As we mentioned, we are maintaining a sharp focus on operating leverage and Contribution Margin and expect to achieve sequential improvements in Adjusted EBITDA and cash flow.
Looking to the back half of 2024 and beyond, we continue to take actions toward achieving profitability and building a sustainable business that can operate in any real estate environment. We are patient and long-term focused in our technology roadmap and our go-to-market strategy. As we execute against the large untapped market opportunity for Offerpad's platform, we look forward to updating you on the quarterly progress and the progress we are making with our long-term strategic mission of taking the friction out of real estate. Thank you for your attention. We will now take questions.
Moderator (participant)
We will now begin our question-and-answer session. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, it is star one. As a reminder, all participants are limited to one question and one follow-up. If you have any additional questions, you may requeue for a question. Our first question is from Dae K. Lee with the company J.P. Morgan. Dae, your line is now open. Dae, please ensure you're not on mute. Our next question comes from Nick Jones with the company JMP. Nick, your line is now open.
Nick Jones (Managing Director of Internet Equity Research)
Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Guys, I guess, Brian, one for you, and welcome, Peter. Good to chat again. One for you as well. You know, Brian, you have a deep history with real estate agents and in the industry, you know, you're setting up kinda new solutions. You know, the new one announced today, Powered by Offerpad, there's renovation. How are you kind of envisioning the business evolving, maybe near term? You know, there's kind of a lot of uncertainty still baked in. I think we'll find out in another 12 days or so, as the NAR settlement trickles through the ecosystem, and we see how buyer agents react and just agents at large.
How do you see the business maybe evolving in terms of the solution set it's offering, near to medium term, as you know, the residential real estate volume remains kinda depressed these days?
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
Hey, hey, Nick. Yeah. You know, when we founded Offerpad, we wanted to be a solution center for everyone, and that includes real estate agents as well. You know, we wanna meet the customer where they're at. You know, some of them want to be represented by agents, some of them don't. So as we build out more technologies and solutions for everyone, you know, as we integrate it in with our internal platform, Helix, and some of the other things that we do, so they can get real-time information, and the agent can get real-time information, that's been something we've been focused on. And the Powered by Offerpad solution is. That's been key for agents.
As we've onboarded more and more agents through our partner program, you know, we continue to expand our technology there as well. But yeah, as you look at it, in the next, you know, coming months or weeks, however you look at it, I mean, as I mentioned in my remarks, I see the market transitioning from a low inventory sellers market into more inventory and less buyer demand we've seen because of the affordability lately. And so we're seeing inventory mounting up in a lot of our markets. And so what we want to do, again, is we're hyper-focused on providing solutions for everyone, again, agents and customers alike, and with our Renovate product, people that need renovation services.
You know, we're onboarding people almost daily to use our renovation services. All of that has been key to what we do, and we want it to grow. As like I said, we don't want to be just an iBuyer; we want to be a solution center. The iBuyer is the platform that allows us to kinda lay the foundation, build the operation that you need to buy, renovate, and sell a home in 100 days. But because we can do that, we can let other people plug into that system, and you know, provide a lot of benefits to that as well.
Nick Jones (Managing Director of Internet Equity Research)
Great, and that's really helpful. And, Peter, maybe, you know, your thoughts, you know, newer to the company, you know, how are you kinda thinking about balancing, you know, cutting costs, trying to drive EBITDA profitability, and then making sure the business is still positioned to kind of accelerate when things kind of ostensibly normalize at some point in the near to medium term?
Peter Knag (CFO)
Yeah. Sure. Look, I think they, they go hand in hand. We are, we are, as, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we are focused on taking advantage of the lower volume, tougher real estate environment that we're in right now, and using that time to position the... We're more focused on bottom line than top line, but to position the business in a place where we are successful and Adjusted EBITDA positive and ultimately cash flow positive in any environment. So, so they really do go hand in hand.
When we get there, you know, we can, we're always gonna do, we're always going to do better top line, especially for the, with the cash offer, but, but all the asset light services as well, because they are, at some level, part of the flywheel. We're always going to do better when there's a higher volume market. We're in a very low volume market, so we're taking this time to position ourselves right for any market, and that's gonna play into our ability to participate down the road.
Nick Jones (Managing Director of Internet Equity Research)
Great. Thank you both.
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
Thanks.
Moderator (participant)
Our next question comes from Ryan Tomasello with the company Stifel. Ryan, your line is now open.
Ryan Tomasello (Managing Director)
Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. I was hoping, Brian, you can provide some just color on the dispersion of performance you're seeing across your footprint. Obviously, pretty volatile period for housing right now. Any markets that stand out in terms of more notable slowing trends on rising inventory, price cuts, et cetera, and conversely, any markets that are, you know, bucking these trends on the slowdown that you're more active in?
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah. Hey, Ryan. The Florida markets, there's a lot going on in Florida right now. Obviously, there's literally right now, there's a hurricane happening today. But, insurance costs are going up there. Affordability, you know, as it was already stressed and having any more costs in there with insurance costs is adding some pressure to that market. So we're seeing more supply happening in markets like Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, in those markets.
You know, we are seeing, and I would say also in Phoenix, you know, everything is, you know—we like what we're seeing on the mortgage side today with some of the mortgage rates coming down because the markets that have been stressed the most with affordability, even a 25 basis points or 50 basis points mortgage drop can allow a buyer that couldn't afford a house maybe to now afford the house. And so, I would say the Florida markets and Phoenix have been impacted by affordability, and we're seeing more slower buyer demand in those markets overall and more inventory hitting the markets.
I will tell you in some of the Houston market, you know, Houston market and Indy, that's been a really good market. And that market stayed pretty consistent. But again, those are markets that didn't have the big spike that led to more affordability with price point either. But yeah, so... But overall, I would just tell you, you are seeing inventory, more sellers putting their home on the market, more sellers testing the market, putting their home on the market, testing it for 30 or 60 days, to see if they can get the price that they want, and then pulling the home back off the market.
And then in lieu of, you know, and I mentioned this in the remarks, we're seeing more buyers reach out to us first. And as markets start to slow or you start seeing buyer demand, of course, we're a buyer, and so they reach out to us. So you're seeing our request activity, you're seeing more of the agent partners reach out for us for offers. And so, but we're staying very, very disciplined right now in what we're willing to pay for a home, and focused on where we're buying in our buy box overall. But as you know, and the other part that I just mentioned on that too, Ryan, is that, you know, there's talks this morning on recessions and those things.
You know, people still buy and sell homes and transactions or, you know, and transact real estate in recessions. So we're watching all of that closely, and you know, expecting, you know, that's similar to what we're seeing now, 4 million units moving through a year.
Ryan Tomasello (Managing Director)
Great. Appreciate all that color, Brian. And, you know, you mentioned, I think asset-light services were around a third of total transactions in the quarter. I think it was a bit higher last quarter. If we do, in fact, see the market shift more to a buyer's market in the coming quarters, which inclines you to be a bit more willing to take advantage of the cash offer product, do you see the asset-light services mix of transactions kind of peaking out here over the near term in this roughly one-third of transactions? And as a follow-up to that, any color you can give us on the, you know, sequential trajectory of acquisition volume into the third quarter and fourth quarter relative to the levels that you put up in the second quarter?
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
I'll jump into the first, then have Peter take the second there. Yeah, I think the, you know, if you remember from transaction levels overall, if you look at our, some of our long-term partners, the SFRs, they've been impacted by rates and some of the things that, you know, their transaction volume has been down as well. So I think as you start switching to a buy—you see a buyer's market and transaction levels pick up, or there's more opportunity for other investors in there, I think you're going to see, in effect, other investors jump into the market, which really helps our Direct Plus channel. And then secondary to that, the more homes they buy, the more homes they need to renovate. And one of the things that...
You know, renovate, we're getting really good growth in what we're seeing now, but I believe we're just getting started there because as transaction volume pick up there, you're going to continue to grow as well. And so, especially with some of the new partners that we signed up. So I think that will be natural. And that's what's been difficult through this time as you look at the different channels in this market. All of them, I believe, are at some of the lowest levels for scalability that we're going to see as we go.
And when you start seeing the market at least doing something, it's been a little bit in the freeze over the last year, you're going to start seeing all of those services start to increase in my opinion, depending on what the market does. So I think there's an awesome opportunity there. But, Peter, you want to talk a little bit about-
Peter Knag (CFO)
Yeah, yeah, I just add to get to the acquisition volume question. We are not planning on increased acquisition volume. In fact, you know, as we've guided for third quarter, we expect that to go down. You know, of course, anything could happen, you know. We're not, you know, nobody can predict the macro environment and the volume, so that could change, as I think you were sort of suggesting, Ryan, that could change if the markets change. But right now we are, you know, as we identified in the prepared remarks, we are more focused on our bottom line than our top line, and that's really the priority again, so that we can be prepared to take advantage of top line as that comes.
As to the question around mix, that's going to move around. We are this quarter beginning to break out revenue between cash offer and our Asset-light services. So you're going to start to get more visibility on that, and I'm sure we'll, you know, that'll lead to more questions in the coming quarters. But the mix is going to... Those services are all relatively new, at different stages, but relatively new. So they are all growing. You know, quarter to quarter, that sometimes the dynamics are going to be a little bit different. And then depending on the volume, our cash offer volume may go up or down.
So the mix, you know, of around—well, this quarter, we were 34% on transactions for the asset-light business and, you know, next quarter, if I had to guess, it's probably somewhere in the same neighborhood, but the mix is gonna shift as we, as we shift between higher volume in the cash offer and growth across the asset-light services.
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah, and the one other thing I'll just add there, just as we talk about volume. You know, in moments like this, we are super focused on active inventory. You know, it's much more important than pendings and solds. And so, you know, we're watching it very closely and where we're buying homes, how many active competing, you know, it's supply and demand. If there's too much supply, not enough buyers or you know, buyers can't afford that area. So we have been, we've been managing that really well, and we'll continue to do so. And so there's definitely pockets that we're more aggressive in, that we wanna buy more homes in.
But then there's other pockets that right now we just see inventory hitting the market at a pretty fast pace, and so we're gonna slow down our acquisitions in those areas or pockets.
Moderator (participant)
Our next question comes from Michael Ng with the company Goldman Sachs. Michael, your line is now open.
Michael Ng (Vice President and Senior Equity Analyst)
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the questions. I just have two. First, on buyer commissions, are you seeing any pressure on buyer commissions? Are you paying lower selling costs as a result? And then second, thank you for giving some disclosures on the, ancillary services, you know, $6.2 million in the quarter. What's the right way to think about margins on those ancillary services, you know, year to date, but also in the long term? Thank you.
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
Sure. I'll take the first, have Peter jump into the second. Yeah, as far as buyer commissions, we have a little. It's, I would say, still too early to tell. You know, there's obviously a lot of noise in the industry. As I mentioned last time, I believe strongly that buyers are going to get used to dealing with the sellers directly. I think there's gonna be a lot of change that happens in the industry over the next, you know, several months or years. But still too early to tell. I think agents themselves are filling things out. You know, we're launching Instant Access.
Again, I mentioned that before, that we allow buyers to access our homes directly, and they can choose to submit an offer to us directly or choose to work with an agent. But too early to tell with what we're seeing with the commissions on that side of it. Definitely a lot of noise out there. I think we'll have a lot more understanding, probably next quarter. There's a lot of these things getting ready to take place, and so probably have a better update next quarter on that.
Peter Knag (CFO)
Okay. Then on margins on the asset-light or ancillary services, I know James has gone through that in prior calls. But just to take you through it, the you know, three major asset-light services or ancillary services are Renovate, Direct Plus, and Max. Renovate is, you know, pretty straightforward to think about, right? It's our renovation business that we use both for our own homes as well as for third-party B2B business. That's accretive to the business and utilizes our existing team. We charge a fee of anywhere from 20%-30% for those services. Direct Plus is, you know, underwriting homes, but then closing with an institutional partner.
And so we don't balance sheet there, and there's a fee for that service that you should think about, as, you know, very high, 90%+. And then for Max, which is our, you know, part of our agent partnership program, where we send leads to agents for homes that are either outside of our Buy Box or not in our region or otherwise aren't going to our cash offer. And that's also very high margin. It's a combination of subscription as well as a referral fee, and, you know, think about that as 90%+, as well.
Michael Ng (Vice President and Senior Equity Analyst)
Great. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Peter.
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
Thanks.
Moderator (participant)
Our next question is from John Colantuoni, with the company Jefferies. John, your line is now open.
John Colantuoni (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Looks like home price appreciation is beginning to moderate, you and Brian, you also mentioned the market shifting into a buyer's market. You know, given you're holding homes for about 100 days, I'm curious how you plan to adjust to home price appreciation moderating back towards historical averages, while interest rates still remain elevated? That's question one. And the second one, about regarding Powered by Offerpad, can you describe the key use cases for agents, and what's the ultimate goal for the portal? It seems to offer some similar tools that the MLSs do, so I'm curious if that means you'll be abiding by all the restrictions on cooperative compensation that's outlined in the NAR settlement. Thanks.
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah. I'll take the second question first. Yeah, with Powered by Offerpad, you know, the idea is with efficiency. And, you know, a lot of the technologies that are out there existing today are not meant for an iBuyer or our model. They're meant for more traditional real estate. So, for something like Powered by Offerpad, to have a traditional agent being able to integrate in with Offerpad, which we call our Helix system, that gives customers the real-time cash offers and even subrental data and data in that market. For the agents to be able to communicate on that, and even for us to understand what the agent is doing in real time, meeting with the customer, and be able to track that.
So, that's something that we've been working on for a while. But the idea is the efficiencies and the communication, and ultimately, it's to make sure, you know, we're very, very proud of our customer satisfaction and, when customers use Offerpad, how happy they are with our service. To make sure when we put somebody else in there with a real estate agent, we hold them to the same expectations and be able to track their how they're treating the customer, even real-time surveys and some different things as we continue to evolve, and also watching our disposition data on that as well.
So, communication efficiency is key in making sure the customer gets the same experience, and they get real-time data. As far... Sorry, what was that? Remind me again, what the-
Peter Knag (CFO)
HPA.
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
Oh, yeah, sorry, on the home price appreciation. Listen, for the last couple quarters, we have not been underwriting any home price appreciation in there. We have been very, very... You know, and a lot of underwriting goes into the assumptions you make. It's not just ROI or service fees. It's the assumptions you're gonna make. How long are you gonna hold that? If there's five comparables in the area, are you top of market, mid-market, or lower of those comps when you underwrite what you think you can sell that home for?
So those are all things that we've integrated in the last couple quarters, and that's where you're gonna see some of our volume, and we're—like you said, we're staying disciplined in what's happening because it's all and when I say that's all very, very market specific. But I don't believe there's any market that we've been underwriting at any type of home price appreciation for the last little bit, even though I know it's up 4% year-over-year. But we have been staying, especially when we've seen inventory hitting the market, we've stayed very disciplined on making sure when we buy a home, we can buy, renovate it, and sell it.
Also, you know, as inventory starts hitting the market, we wanna make sure that we're spending a little bit more money on some of the renovations, so our home... So that's really what we're focused on. So we've really been more conservative with the home price appreciation side for the last couple quarters.
Peter Knag (CFO)
Yeah, I'd just add wider spreads.
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
Right.
Peter Knag (CFO)
I mean, there's two things that we're really focused on right now in this period that we're in. It's wider spreads, you know, given the lower volumes, and cost efficiencies. And so, you know, so we're certainly not, as Brian mentioned, we're certainly not relying on appreciation to drive our model in any way. We're pretty far away from that. And I'd also point out that our impairment this quarter was $500,000, which is almost a rounding error, and again, I point to because I think it reflects the discipline and patience that we're taking with the market and not driving the business just for volume. Yeah, I, you know, ... is the easy part.
We want to buy, renovate, and sell them at a profit. So that's what we've been, that's what we've been focused on. And, you know, and I mentioned this in the prepared remarks, but one of the sweet spots is really, really good areas. Good, you know, with strong established schools, good areas, those kind, are, you know, close to a lot of amenities, that we can buy a home that's a little bit older, renovate that home, add value to that home, and put on the market, again, at a better product. That, that's been, that's been, a really good sweet spot for us as well. Also staying away from outlying areas. We're seeing inventory mount up in a lot of the outlying areas.
Any of the commute time areas, in almost every market, you're seeing a lot of inventory add up there. So, we're buying more interior right now and staying disciplined in what we're going to pay, and then obviously focusing on our other asset-light services. Thanks so much.
John Colantuoni (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Thanks.
Moderator (participant)
Our next question comes from Dae K. Lee with the company J.P. Morgan. Dae, your line is now open.
Dae K. Lee (Vice President and Senior Analyst)
Great. Thanks for taking the question, and apologies, I had some phone issues, so these, these questions might have been answered already. First one, Peter, could you clarify what you mean by sequential improvement in Adjusted EBITDA in your 3Q guide? Is that on an absolute basis or on, on a margin basis, and do you anticipate gross margins improving as well? And then, I guess, more broadly, you saw a healthy improvement in net, net sales proceeds percentage. So curious, like, how much of that is driven by better targeting of homes that Brian just talked about? And how much of that is driven by maybe renovation contributing more, or is it more on your spreads being wider at this point?
Peter Knag (CFO)
Sorry, so I heard the first, the second part of the question, the net, net proceeds improvement. Can you repeat the first question?
Dae K. Lee (Vice President and Senior Analyst)
Yeah, the first one is, well, hoping if you can clarify what you mean by sequential improvement in adjusted EBITDA in your 3Q guide-
Peter Knag (CFO)
Ah, gotcha.
Dae K. Lee (Vice President and Senior Analyst)
If that's an absolute basis or on the margin basis, and if that assumes gross margin is improving as well?
Peter Knag (CFO)
Yeah, sure. It doesn't necessarily assume a gross margin improvement, but it probably that we probably will see gross margin improvement. The most important focus there is getting first to EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA positive, and then second to cash flow positive, contribution profit, and then cash flow positive. So we're doing that. You know, really two major levers are driving that. One, expanding margins, but also two, cost efficiency. So it just depends on the mix between those two, but we're gonna see expanding margins sequentially, quarter over quarter, and we're gonna see continued cost efficiency. So we had $70 million in 2023 that came out of the business.
We're seeing a run rate of $35 million coming out of the business already this year, and there's more to come on that. We have more wood to chop on that, and there's gonna be more conversations around that and more information around that, after, as we get into next quarter.
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
And then the net sales proceeds, you know, I think it...
Peter Knag (CFO)
Oh, go ahead.
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
No, go ahead. I'll, I'll let you finish.
Peter Knag (CFO)
Yeah, look, I mean, I think, I think I sort of answered the net sales proceeds question, where, you know, we have, we have expanding margins across our products, you know, both with the asset-light services growing, and then on top of that, with our higher ROI on the cash offer, we're, we're moving towards, you know, higher net proceeds.
Dae K. Lee (Vice President and Senior Analyst)
Got it. Thank you. And then, I guess, as a follow-up, maybe this one for you, Brian. On Friday, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae seems like a big win for Renovate. So just wondering, like, how you're looking to work with them, and if, if that's any different versus your existing partners, and like, how that partnership could ramp over time?
Brian Bair (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah, we're excited about that. You know, obviously, they're both high volume clients, even in this market. And what are great about them is we can expand markets without having our Express or our cash offer business in those markets. And so, as we expand into some different markets, so we can actually grow in. They're a great example. We can actually go into a market led by our renovation business and have our other services follow into that. And so, you know, the other things that, you know, they're high dollar renovations as well, so they take a little bit more time.
But, you know, with our, with our boots on the ground and efficiencies and things, they see a lot of, a lot of value in what we're seeing there as well. And you know, as with the ground game and the real estate knowledge that we have and, and, and how to, how to repair those homes helps as well. So those are two, two, customers we're, we're very, very excited about. You know, we've-- like I mentioned a little bit earlier, we're signing up Renovate customers, I would say almost every day. I don't wanna be overdramatic with it, but, but we're signing up a lot of Renovate customers.
And, you know, we like to say, "Hey, put us side by side with anybody you're using now, and watch our efficiencies." Because, you know, it's just different when you're doing renovations on your own behalf, on the Offerpad side. And like I say, a lot of our teams on the ground, project managers, foremen, those, the people that are employees of Offerpad, in some cases, they don't know the difference if it's an Offerpad house or one of our partners that we work with. And so they get the same cost and efficiencies and value of our ground game.
And so we continue to expand that, especially with kind of the side-by-side challenge that we do with some of our partners there, and continue to take more and more of that Renovate business from them. So we're very excited about that. And as we've kind of mentioned before, something that Ryan asked, is that, you know, we're seeing a little bit of loosening in the SFR side. Not a bunch, but just a little bit of loosening there. And, you know, they're having trouble with yields and different things of trying to buy and, you know, trying to acquire homes in this environment as well, with affordability and some of the other things, but seeing a little bit of loosening there.
So, anyway, on the asset-light side, I think overall, we're gonna see some of those things turn on, and continue to grow and scale, even faster than what we're seeing now.
Dae K. Lee (Vice President and Senior Analyst)
Sounds good. Thank you.
Moderator (participant)
At this time, that will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and enjoy the rest of your day.