Hemnet Group AB (publ) - Deep Dive Research Report

HEM.ST | Nasdaq Stockholm Large Cap | Communication Services

Research Date: April 2026

1. What the Company Does

Sweden buys and sells homes differently from almost anywhere else in Europe. When a Swede wants to sell their apartment, they call a real estate agent, sign a mandate, and the agent lists the property on one website. That website is Hemnet. This is not hyperbole or rounding - nine out of every ten Swedish residential properties that traded hands in 2024 were advertised on hemnet.se. The average Swede spends 38 minutes per month on the platform even when they are not buying or selling. Hemnet is where Sweden goes to dream about property, track prices, and, eventually, transact.

The founding story matters here. In 1997, a Stockholm broker named Bengt Bjartorp had a problem: newspaper advertising for property listings was expensive, slow, and could not be easily compared by buyers. He proposed a shared digital portal that the entire brokerage industry could use. The idea was adopted by the major industry associations - Fastighetsmäklarförbundet, Mäklarsamfundet, and the two largest national brokerage chains, Fastighetsbyrån and Svensk Fastighetsförmedling. In April 1998, hemnet.se launched with 1,400 brokers already on the platform. Bjartorp received SEK 15,000 as compensation for the idea.

The origin as an industry cooperative explains almost everything about Hemnet's subsequent dynamics. It was built by agents, for agents, in a market that already used one dominant portal. By the time private equity arrived (General Atlantic and Sprints Capital bought a majority in December 2016), the network effects were so entrenched that the platform had become effectively unavoidable. Hemnet listed on Nasdaq Stockholm in April 2021 under ticker HEM.

What Hemnet actually does is deceptively simple: it is an online marketplace where property listings appear, buyers search, and agents promote their services. But the mechanism that makes it commercially powerful is worth unpacking.

In Sweden, the seller pays for the listing, not the agent. A homeowner instructs an agent, and the agent facilitates publishing the listing on Hemnet - but the homeowner chooses which advertising package to buy and pays Hemnet directly. This is called vendor-paid advertising, and it is the same model used by REA Group in Australia and, increasingly, by Scout24 in Germany. The distinction is important: in markets like the UK where Rightmove charges agents (who then bundle the cost invisibly), pricing power is limited. In Sweden, the seller sees the Hemnet price directly and makes an active decision to upgrade. This creates a different relationship - sellers are customers making purchase decisions, not passive recipients of a service their agent already bought.

The product works like this: a seller instructs their agent, the agent creates the listing, and the seller is presented with four packaging options - Bas (basic, included), Plus, Premium, and Max (launched April 2025). Each tier adds more visibility on the platform: larger images in search results, placement advantages, email campaigns to buyers who have saved similar searches. The seller pays for the chosen tier. Hemnet then receives that revenue directly from the seller. The agent, separately, receives a commission from Hemnet based on the packages they help upsell - a structure introduced in July 2024 that fundamentally changed agent incentives.

The buyer side is entirely free. Any Swedish resident can browse Hemnet without cost or registration. This is by design: maximum buyer engagement is what makes the platform valuable to sellers and agents, and charging buyers would reduce that traffic. Hemnet monetizes buyers indirectly through advertising and financial services partnerships (mortgage calculators, insurance referrals), but the buyer experience is kept deliberately open.

The network effect is self-reinforcing in a way that took decades to build and would take decades to replicate. Buyers go to Hemnet because every listing is there. Sellers list on Hemnet because all buyers look there. Agents use Hemnet because their clients expect it and because 6,300 buyer views per listing far exceeds any alternative (Hemnet generates approximately 16 times more views per listing than its nearest competitor). The feedback loop has run for 27 years. Breaking it would require a competitor to simultaneously convince buyers to change browsing behavior, sellers to accept less exposure, and agents to absorb the professional risk of reduced visibility for their clients' properties - all at the same time.

2. Business Segments

Hemnet reports revenue in two segments: B2C (Property Sellers) and B2B (Real Estate Agents, Developers, and Display Advertising). These are structurally different businesses with different growth drivers, pricing dynamics, and competitive exposures.

B2C - Property Seller Advertising

This is the commercial core of Hemnet. It generated approximately 82% of full-year 2024 revenue and grew 46% in that year. Every published property listing generates B2C revenue: the base listing carries a small fee, and the seller's choice to upgrade to Plus, Premium, or Max generates incremental revenue on top of that. The key metric is ARPL - Average Revenue Per Published Listing - which reached SEK 6,382 in full-year 2024 and SEK 8,175 in full-year 2025 (including a jump to SEK 10,916 in Q4 2025 alone).

The driver of ARPL growth is package mix. As recently as 2022, the majority of Swedish sellers listed on Hemnet's basic package. The introduction of clearly differentiated product tiers, combined with the July 2024 agent compensation model change (agents now earn commissions for recommending upgrades), produced a structural step-change. By Q3 2024, two in three sellers were upgrading to Plus or Premium. Premium conversions more than doubled in Q3 2024 compared to the prior year. This is not a temporary pricing event - it represents a change in the baseline expectation of what a Hemnet listing looks like.

The April 2025 launch of Hemnet Max added a fourth tier above Premium, designed for sellers who want maximum exposure. Early data from Q2 2025 showed Max listings generating more buyer visits, higher bidding premiums, and more saved searches than Premium listings, validating the product hypothesis. Max follows the same maturation trajectory management has seen from previous package introductions - slow initial penetration, then gradually becoming the new standard for premium sellers.

The B2C segment's fundamental challenge is volume. ARPL growth is powerful, but it runs on top of a listing volume base that is set by the Swedish housing market. When transaction volumes fall (as they did sharply in H2 2025, with published listings down 19% in Q3 and 26% in Q4), no amount of ARPL expansion can fully compensate. Q4 2025 net sales declined 4.4% despite ARPL growing 29%, a mathematical illustration of the volume sensitivity.

The "Sell first, pay later" initiative launched in 2026 is a direct response to volume pressure. By allowing sellers to list and pay only upon successful sale, Hemnet aims to lower the financial barrier that prevents hesitant sellers from coming to market. The Q4 2025 pilot in Stockholm saw offices offering the product increase listings 4% year-on-year despite the broader market decline. The nationwide rollout began in Stockholm in February 2026, extending to Västra Götaland in March, and the rest of Sweden in April 2026.

B2B - Agent, Developer, and Display Advertising

The B2B segment serves three distinct customer groups with meaningfully different dynamics.

Real estate agent value-added services are the growth engine within B2B. These include Hemnet Business (a subscription allowing agents to display their firm logo on listings and access analytics tools), Mäklartipset (premium placement giving agents brand visibility alongside listings in specific areas), and a relatively new product helping agents identify potential sellers before they list anywhere. This last product is strategically significant: it helps agents solve their core business problem (finding new clients with homes to sell), not just improving listings that are already on their books. B2B value-added services grew 4.9% in 2024 even as the overall B2B segment declined.

Property developer solutions enable new construction projects to be advertised as a single aggregated listing representing multiple individual units. This segment is directly correlated with Swedish residential construction, which has been in a severe multi-year downturn. New construction starts in Sweden collapsed approximately 50% between 2022 and 2024 due to high interest rates, elevated build costs, and falling apartment prices. Developer advertising on Hemnet has contracted accordingly, and there is limited near-term recovery prospect given construction pipeline lead times.

Display advertising is the weakest link. This is traditional banner and digital advertising sold to real estate agents, banks, insurance companies, and other property-adjacent businesses who want to reach Hemnet's 7.4 million monthly unique users. The problem is that Hemnet's audience, while enormous and highly targeted, visits the site with a specific property-search intent that does not naturally translate into general brand advertising recall. Display advertising fell sharply in 2024 and continued declining in 2025 - not because Hemnet lost audience but because property developers (the largest display advertisers) cut spending as the construction market contracted.

Overall B2B revenue declined 3.8% in 2024 and continues to face headwinds. Management has signaled that display advertising will remain a drag but that agent value-added services represent the growth path within B2B.

3. Products and Business Detail

Hemnet Bas is the base listing product included with all published properties. It delivers standard placement in search results, basic listing pages with photos and description, and exposure to Hemnet's full buyer audience. It carries a modest base fee. For most of Hemnet's history, Bas was the default and the majority.

Hemnet Plus adds an image carousel in search result listings (as opposed to the static thumbnail in Bas), increased visual prominence on the most-visited page in the platform, and enhanced listing page design. The image carousel appears directly in search results - the most-visited page on hemnet.se - giving Plus listings a materially larger visual footprint at the moment of maximum buyer engagement.

Hemnet Premium adds targeted email campaigns sent to buyers who have saved searches matching the property's criteria. This is the most powerful feature in the product stack prior to Max: if a buyer has told Hemnet they are looking for a three-bedroom apartment in Södermalm within a specific price range and a property matching those criteria publishes as Premium, that buyer receives a push notification and email. The seller is buying direct access to the most motivated buyers already in the Hemnet funnel. Premium penetration more than doubled year-on-year in Q3 2024 following the agent compensation model change.

Hemnet Max, launched April 1, 2025, is the top tier. Max includes everything in Premium plus top search placement (the listing appears first in relevant searches for a defined period), a larger share of voice on the platform (increased frequency of impressions across the site), landing page exposure, targeted email campaigns more extensive than Premium, and viewing times displayed directly in search results. Early Q2 2025 data showed Max listings generating measurably more visits, higher bidding premiums at auction, and more saved searches than Premium-equivalent listings. Management described the early takeup as following the pattern of previous package launches - initial uptake concentrated among sellers with higher price sensitivity (i.e., owners of higher-value properties in competitive markets).

Raketen (the Rocket) is a standalone add-on available separately from the package tiers. It temporarily places a listing at the top of search results for a defined window, then allows it to return to its normal placement. It is designed for sellers whose properties have been on the market for some time and want to reset attention. It does not change the listing's base statistics (days on market, view count), making it distinct from the "Renew your ad" feature.

Renew your ad (Förnya annons) resets a listing's visible statistics - particularly the days-on-market counter and view count - effectively making an existing listing appear fresh to buyers who may have dismissed it. This is aimed at the growing share of Swedish properties experiencing extended listing times (average 34 days in 2025, up from 15 days in 2021).

Hemnet Business is the core agent subscription product. For a recurring fee, agents and their brokerage offices can display their brand logos on published listings (building brand equity alongside every transaction they complete), access Andelsstatistiken (market share analytics showing their performance relative to competitors in specific areas), and use Hemnet Live (live-streamed viewings). As of Q4 2025, over 60 brokerage brands covering 25% of the Swedish agent market had signed formal partnership agreements with Hemnet, a new structural commitment beyond individual agent subscriptions.

Mäklartipset gives individual agents paid premium placement at the top of results in specific geographic areas, showing both the listed property and the agent's brand prominently. It is the B2B equivalent of Premium for agents rather than sellers - buying visibility at the moment when buyers are most actively engaged.

The seller-finding product is a newer addition within B2B. It enables agents to identify homeowners in their target areas who may be considering selling, allowing proactive outreach before the property is listed anywhere. This directly addresses agents' biggest business development challenge and positions Hemnet as a lead generation partner, not just a listing venue. Details on exact mechanics and pricing were not fully disclosed in public filings, but it was explicitly cited as a B2B revenue growth driver in the FY2024 annual report.

Hemnet Insights launched in 2025, is an AI-powered analytics tool providing agents with granular market data - price trends, days-on-market by area, buyer demand signals, competitor activity within specific neighborhoods. It converts the data generated by Hemnet's dominant market position into an actionable intelligence product for professionals. No standalone pricing has been disclosed.

Conversational Search is in active development as of Q4 2025. Powered by AI, it allows buyers to describe what they are looking for in natural language rather than using filter menus - "a two-bedroom apartment near good schools in Gothenburg, not too close to the main road" - and receive curated results. A ChatGPT integration is also planned, potentially allowing Hemnet's inventory to surface through third-party AI interfaces. These products are not yet revenue-generating but represent Hemnet's response to the broader AI-driven transformation of search behavior.

Sell first, pay later is the newest structural product initiative. It allows sellers who list their property within two days of first advertising it on their agent's own website to defer payment to Hemnet until and unless the property sells. The condition (within two days of agent-side publication) is strategic - it incentivizes Hemnet placement early in the sales process and discourages properties lingering in pre-market for extended periods before appearing on Hemnet. This protects Hemnet's listing exclusivity while lowering the financial barrier for hesitant sellers.

From January 1, 2026, Hemnet transitioned its primary ARPL metric from "published" to "paid" - reflecting actual revenues collected rather than revenues attached to published listings. This is a meaningful accounting shift as the deferred-payment model grows: a published listing may generate no current revenue if the seller opts for pay-on-sale and the property does not sell. The "paid" metric gives cleaner visibility into actual earned revenue.

4. Customers

Property Sellers (B2C)

The Swedish home seller is Hemnet's most important commercial relationship. Roughly 160,000-170,000 Swedish properties transact annually, with each requiring a published listing. Sellers are not industry professionals - they are individuals transacting in the largest financial event of their lives, typically once every seven to ten years.

The buying decision works as follows: the seller instructs an agent, the agent assists with photographing and preparing the listing, and at the point of publication, the seller is presented with Hemnet's package options. The agent's recommendation is critical - before July 2024, agents had no financial incentive to recommend upgrades, so most sellers defaulted to basic or Plus packages. The compensation model change (agents now earn 0-30% commission on package revenue they help generate) structurally changed this interaction. Agents went from neutral advisors to financially incentivized upsell partners. The 20-plus percentage point jump in agent recommendations for Hemnet Premium within months of the model change demonstrates how powerful this was.

Sellers have essentially no switching cost in the traditional sense - a property can theoretically be listed on Booli or not listed on Hemnet at all. But the switching cost is the cost of reduced exposure: listing off Hemnet means accepting 16x fewer buyer views than the dominant platform. For most sellers, who are making a one-time transaction with high financial stakes, the rational choice is maximum exposure regardless of cost. This is what makes the vendor-paid model self-reinforcing.

Contract structure is simple: sellers pay per listing event. There are no long-term contracts, no subscription, no lock-in period. Revenue is transactional, tied to the volume of homes entering the market.

Real Estate Agents (B2B)

Sweden has approximately 8,000-10,000 registered real estate agents operating through around 2,000 brokerage offices. The top 10 brokerage brands (including Fastighetsbyrån, Mäklarhuset, ERA, and others) handle approximately 80% of all transactions through hundreds of local franchise offices.

Agents purchase Hemnet Business subscriptions at the office level, and individual agents can purchase products like Mäklartipset for personal brand building. The decision-maker for Hemnet Business is typically the franchise owner or regional manager. Individual premium products are agent-led purchases.

The agent relationship changed structurally in July 2024. Before the new compensation model, agents earned nothing from Hemnet regardless of which package their clients chose. After, they earn a variable commission based on package upgrades they facilitate. This made Hemnet a revenue partner, not just a cost. The practical effect: agents now have a business reason to discuss packaging options with sellers, explain the differences between tiers, and recommend upgrades. For Hemnet, the cost of this model (paying commissions) is more than offset by the revenue from higher package selection rates.

Switching costs for agents are moderate. An agent can theoretically stop using Hemnet's B2B products (Hemnet Business subscription, Mäklartipset) without affecting their ability to publish listings. But the agent's personal brand visibility on Hemnet's platform depends on the subscription, and the analytics tools are genuinely useful for professional performance. The competitive risk is that agents dissatisfied with Hemnet's pricing or practices could recommend Booli to their seller clients - which is exactly what Fastighetsbyrån began doing in 2026.

Property Developers (B2B)

Developers publishing new-build apartment projects are a distinct customer category. They use Hemnet's project advertisement product to present a development as a single listing umbrella with multiple sub-units. Developers are professional, price-sensitive buyers who spend based on their project pipeline. This segment is heavily cyclical - it grew strongly in 2020-2022 during the construction boom and contracted sharply as the construction market collapsed in 2023-2024. Developer spending on Hemnet is unlikely to recover until the Swedish new-build market recovers, which requires both lower interest rates (progressing) and confidence in apartment price stability (still fragile).

Banks and Financial Services (Display Advertising)

Banks, mortgage providers, and insurance companies buy display advertising on Hemnet to reach buyers in a high-intent moment. Hemnet's mortgage calculator tool (Bank calculator) integrates with partner bank offers, providing a lead generation function for financial services partners. This revenue stream is the smallest and most transactional within B2B, and has faced declining spend as banks cut marketing budgets during the high-interest-rate period.

5. Competitive Landscape

Booli

Booli is the only serious competitor Hemnet has faced in 25 years. It is owned by SBAB, a state-backed Swedish mortgage bank, which provides it with an unusual combination of patient capital and institutional legitimacy. Booli's historical model was data aggregation - it scraped property listings from agent and brokerage websites to build a searchable database. This required no publishing relationships with agents and allowed Booli to show properties that appeared elsewhere without active cooperation. Hemnet filed a complaint against Booli with Sweden's Competition Authority in 2026, characterizing it as a "loss-making operation built on extensive state support via SBAB."

The competitive dynamic shifted materially in early 2026 when Fastighetsbyrån - one of the two largest national brokerage chains in Sweden, accounting for roughly 20-25% of transaction volume - entered a formal partnership with Booli that gave Fastighetsbyrån direct publishing rights on the platform, including control over pre-market and off-market listings. This was not a passive data scraping relationship: Fastighetsbyrån became an active participant, choosing when and how to publish properties on Booli alongside or instead of Hemnet.

The early evidence is materially concerning. By early 2026, approximately 30% of Fastighetsbyrån customers had stopped advertising on Hemnet - compared to under 10% in early 2023. This represents a notable defection, concentrated at the large-agency level, which is exactly where Hemnet is most vulnerable given the top-10 agency concentration in Swedish transactions.

However, context matters. Hemnet still generates 10.7x Booli's monthly web traffic and 12.2x its revenues. A seller who lists exclusively on Booli is accepting dramatically less buyer exposure. At 30% Fastighetsbyrån opt-out, the question is whether those sellers are genuinely happy with less visibility or whether they were guided by their agent for reasons unrelated to seller interest. The "sell first, pay later" initiative is partly a response to this: by aligning Hemnet's financial model with sellers' risk preferences, Hemnet is trying to rebuild the direct seller-to-Hemnet relationship that is less dependent on agent recommendation.

Booli's competitive edge is primarily in pre-market inventory. Swedish properties increasingly appear on agent websites and social media before they formally list on any portal - the "upcoming" or "pre-market" phase. Booli, through data scraping and now the Fastighetsbyrån partnership, has captured a meaningful share of this pre-market visibility. For buyers who want to see homes before they formally list, Booli has become a supplement. Hemnet's response has been the "Upcoming" feature (showing properties in the pre-market phase on Hemnet), combined with the two-day publication requirement embedded in the sell-first-pay-later program.

Blocket

Blocket.se is Sweden's largest general classified ads platform, with 24 million monthly visitors. It has a real estate section. It is not a genuine competitor in the property vertical - it lacks the depth of listing data, the buyer engagement, and the professional infrastructure that agents require. Blocket is listed as a competitor by traffic analysis tools but has not meaningfully competed for the primary listing market.

Rightmove, REA Group, Scout24 (Structural Comparisons)

These are not direct competitors - they operate in different geographies - but they are essential benchmarks for understanding Hemnet's position and potential.

Rightmove (UK) is the most direct structural analog. Like Hemnet, it is a near-monopoly portal in its home market. Unlike Hemnet, it charges agents rather than sellers. Its margins are higher (75%+ EBITDA) because it has extracted more of the available surplus from agents over decades. Hemnet's margins (50%+ EBITDA in FY2025) are lower partly because the vendor-paid model is newer and partly because the agent commission structure (paying agents to upsell) has no equivalent in Rightmove's model.

REA Group (Australia) is the most relevant operational benchmark. REA uses vendor-paid advertising, as Hemnet does, but REA has been doing it for longer and has pushed pricing further. In 2023, REA generated approximately USD 3,439 per listing compared to Hemnet's USD 645 - a 5.3x gap. REA's Australian portal had a 64.8% operating margin versus Hemnet's 44.6% (2023 figures). The gap exists because REA has had 20+ years to raise prices on a vendor-paid model. Hemnet began the serious monetization push only in 2021-2022. If Hemnet follows REA's trajectory, the implication is that ARPL can increase substantially over the next decade without exhausting the available pricing headroom.

Scout24 (Germany) operates in a more fragmented market with stronger agent lobbying against vendor-paid models. It is less comparable but confirms that property portals in larger markets with weaker network effects face harder monetization paths.

Barriers to Entry

The barriers are high but not absolute. Building a network effect from scratch in a market where one platform already has 90% penetration is effectively impossible through organic means. A new entrant would need to simultaneously persuade enough agents to list, enough buyers to browse, and enough sellers to pay - against a platform where the feedback loop has run for 27 years. The Booli situation is instructive: despite having state backing (SBAB), meaningful scraping infrastructure, and a major brokerage partnership, Booli remains a fraction of Hemnet's size after years of effort.

The real threat is not a new pure-play portal but a large platform (Google, Meta, a major bank) that could acquire distribution through an existing channel. The Fastighetsbyrán-Booli partnership is the first credible example of an established channel player deciding to work against Hemnet rather than with it.

6. Industry

What Drives Demand

Hemnet's revenue is a function of two variables: how many properties list per year (volume) and how much sellers spend per listing (ARPL). Volume is almost entirely determined by the Swedish housing market. When interest rates fall, transaction activity increases, housing mobility improves, and listing volumes rise. When interest rates rise or economic confidence falls, transaction volumes drop and sellers stay put. Sweden experienced this cycle acutely: the 2020-2022 pandemic boom was followed by a sharp 2023 downturn (when interest rates rose rapidly), a partial 2024 recovery (the Riksbank cut rates six times), and then a 2025 stagnation as global trade uncertainty and geopolitical anxiety suppressed consumer confidence despite lower rates.

The Swedish housing market differs from most European peers in its structural features. Swedes own their homes at high rates and have significant housing equity concentrated in the owner-occupied segment. The market is also notably urban-concentrated: Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö account for the majority of transaction volumes, and regional markets behave quite differently from each other. In 2025, Hemnet's own data showed "great contrasts" between regional and property-type performance.

Industry Size

Sweden trades approximately 160,000-170,000 residential properties per year in a normalized market. At Hemnet's 2025 ARPL of approximately SEK 8,000-10,000 per listing, the addressable B2C revenue pool for seller advertising alone is SEK 1.3-1.7 billion at current penetration. This is a relatively small TAM by global standards - Sweden has 10 million people and is a single national market. The growth thesis for Hemnet is not industry size but monetization rate: closing the 5.3x gap with REA Group over time as the vendor-paid model matures.

The Swedish residential real estate market had an aggregate transaction value of approximately SEK 300 billion annually. Hemnet captures a small fraction of this value via listing fees - the monetization runway is substantial if pricing continues to expand.

Cyclicality

The Swedish residential market is moderately cyclical. The 2008 global financial crisis reduced Swedish transaction volumes only 11% - significantly less than the UK (47%) or Spain (33%), suggesting a more resilient underlying market. However, the 2022-2023 Swedish-specific downturn driven by domestic interest rate increases showed that the market is not immune to rate-driven demand destruction. The key sensitivity is affordability: Sweden has a relatively high household debt-to-income ratio, and mortgage rate changes flow through to housing demand more directly than in markets with high fixed-rate mortgage penetration.

A structural factor that partially insulates Hemnet from cyclicality is that even in weak markets, properties still trade. Deaths, divorces, job relocations, and forced sales create a floor volume that exists regardless of confidence. The 2023-2025 period saw volumes decline but not collapse - there were still ~150,000+ annual transactions even in weak years.

Regulatory Environment

Sweden does not regulate property listing portals directly. The relevant regulatory bodies are Fastighetsmäklarinspektionen (the Real Estate Agency Inspectorate), which regulates the professional conduct of agents, and Konkurrensverket (the Swedish Competition Authority), which oversees market competition. Hemnet's agent commission model has drawn regulatory attention, with the Competition Authority examining whether paying agents to upsell Hemnet products constitutes an anti-competitive practice. Hemnet has argued the opposite - that it increases competitive selection by rewarding agents who help sellers make informed choices.

The mortgage regulatory changes effective April 1, 2026 (raised mortgage lending cap, removal of stricter amortization requirements) are the most significant near-term regulatory catalyst. These changes will ease affordability constraints for first-time buyers, potentially unlocking a pool of demand that has been priced out of the market during the high-rate period.

Import Dynamics / Geographic Scope

Hemnet operates exclusively in Sweden. There is no international expansion strategy in current management's public communications. The Swedish market is linguistically and institutionally self-contained - the portal operates in Swedish, the agents are licensed under Swedish law, and property transactions follow Swedish legal conventions. This is not a platform that easily replicates in neighboring Nordic countries without building separate networks from scratch.

7. Growth Triggers

The following triggers are sourced exclusively from the four most recent quarterly earnings calls: Q1 2025 (April 25, 2025), Q2 2025 (July 2025), Q3 2025 (October 23, 2025), and Q4 2025 (January 29, 2026).

• Hemnet Max package adoption ramp - Max launched April 1, 2025 and management expected it to follow the same maturation curve as Plus and Premium (slow initial uptake becoming the new premium standard). Early data from Q2 showed Max outperforming Premium on buyer visits and bidding premiums. CEO Jonas Gustafsson stated the operational launch was "successful" and the product showed "a strong value proposition" in its early days. (Q1 2025 concall, April 25, 2025; Q2 2025 concall, July 2025)

"We delivered strong performance in Q2 with continued growth despite the softer property market... Hemnet Max features top search placement and targeted buyer outreach, demonstrating superior performance versus premium offerings." - CEO Jonas Gustafsson, Q2 2025

• "Sell first, pay later" national rollout - After a Q4 2025 Stockholm pilot in which participating offices increased listings 4% year-on-year against a market declining 26%, Hemnet began national rollout starting Stockholm (February 2026), Västra Götaland (March 2026), rest of Sweden (April 2026). Management framed this as the key tool to unlock frozen seller intent. (Q4 2025 concall, January 29, 2026; mentioned as an initiative across Q3 2025 and Q4 2025)

• Mortgage rule easing April 1, 2026 - Management explicitly cited the upcoming changes to Sweden's mortgage lending restrictions (raised cap, removed stricter amortization requirement) as an expected stimulus to market activity. CEO Gustafsson noted that 43% of potential buyers surveyed believed home prices would rise within six months (a meaningful confidence indicator). (Q4 2025 concall, January 29, 2026)

• Strategic agent partnerships - Over 60 brokerage brands representing 25% of the Swedish agent market signed formal partnership agreements with Hemnet. Management identified this as a structural deepening of Hemnet's agent relationships beyond individual subscriptions. The rollout of formal partnerships was ongoing as of Q4 2025. (Q4 2025 concall, January 29, 2026)

• AI product pipeline - Conversational search, personalized discovery feeds, and AI-enabled homepage features were in development or soft launch as of Q4 2025. A ChatGPT integration is planned. Management described AI tools as having materially improved internal development efficiency, enabling faster product delivery. (Q4 2025 concall, January 29, 2026; Q2 2025 concall, July 2025)

• Hemnet Insights agent analytics - Launched in 2025, this AI-powered market intelligence tool for agents represents a new B2B value-added revenue stream. Management described agents as benefiting from access to Hemnet's unique dataset. No specific revenue guidance was given but it was cited as a driver of B2B value-added growth. (Q3 2025 concall, October 23, 2025)

• Value-based pricing over volume pricing - Management explicitly guided that "the largest price hikes are over" and that future ARPL growth will come from product mix (more sellers choosing higher tiers) rather than base price increases. This is a strategic pivot from rate-driven to mix-driven monetization. CEO Gustafsson framed this as more sustainable and less likely to provoke agent or regulatory backlash. (Q3 2025 concall, October 23, 2025)

"The largest price hikes are over, and we focus on value-based pricing. Product mix will drive expansion rather than rate increases." - Management, Q3 2025

• Operating leverage from 2026-2027 - Management guided that operating expenses would grow more slowly in 2025 than in 2024 and flagged expected operational leverage materializing in 2026-2027 as product investments made in 2024-2025 begin generating returns without proportional cost increases. (Q1 2025 concall, April 25, 2025; Q3 2025 concall, October 23, 2025)

• ARPL metric transition to "paid" - Effective January 1, 2026, Hemnet switched its primary ARPL metric from published to paid. This change improves transparency as the deferred-payment model scales. Management indicated this better reflects actual earning capacity. (Q4 2025 concall, January 29, 2026)

8. Key Risks

Volume Sensitivity to Swedish Housing Market

The mechanism: Hemnet's B2C revenue equals ARPL multiplied by listing volume. ARPL has been growing strongly - 28-43% depending on the quarter - but when listing volume falls sharply, as it did in H2 2025 (down 19-26%), ARPL growth cannot compensate arithmetically. Q4 2025 net sales declined 4.4% despite 29% ARPL growth because 26% fewer listings were published. If Swedish housing market activity remains suppressed (as it has been throughout 2025 despite Riksbank rate cuts), revenue growth will be substantially below Hemnet's stated 15-20% long-term target. This is not a low-probability risk - it is already playing out.

Agent Channel Disruption (Fastighetsbyrán-Booli)

The mechanism: Swedish agents are the gatekeepers who influence which package sellers choose and whether listings appear on Hemnet or an alternative. The July 2024 compensation model change made agents financial partners in Hemnet's success - but it also made agents financially aware of Hemnet's pricing in a new way. Fastighetsbyrán's decision to partner with Booli and route approximately 30% of its customers away from Hemnet by early 2026 demonstrates that large brokerage chains have both the motivation (pricing dissatisfaction) and the mechanism (recommending alternatives to sellers) to reduce Hemnet's listing volumes at scale.

If Fastighetsbyrán's 30% opt-out rate becomes a durable baseline, and if other large chains make similar decisions, Hemnet faces not just volume pressure from the market but structural volume loss from its own distribution channel. The sell-first-pay-later initiative is a direct attempt to build a direct relationship with sellers that bypasses the agent recommendation, but this approach depends on sellers actively knowing about and choosing the product rather than following their agent's guidance.

Regulatory Action on Agent Compensation Model

The mechanism: Hemnet's July 2024 compensation model, which pays agents commissions for upselling seller packages, is under review by the Swedish Competition Authority. If regulators determine that this model constitutes anti-competitive bundling or an improper incentive structure - particularly given Hemnet's 90% market share - they could require Hemnet to modify or eliminate the commission structure. The irony is that one analysis suggests removing agent commissions would actually increase Hemnet's EBITDA (eliminating a cost), but would significantly reduce ARPL (by removing the incentive that drives the most powerful upgrade mechanism). This is a moderate-probability, moderate-impact risk that has not crystallized but remains an overhang.

AI-Driven Disruption of Property Search

The mechanism: Hemnet's buyer-side engagement is built on traditional search behavior - buyers visiting hemnet.se, entering filters, browsing results. If AI-powered search (conversational interfaces, large language models that can surface relevant properties from multiple sources, AI-powered agents that negotiate on buyers' behalf) fundamentally changes how buyers find homes, the mandatory-portal model could weaken. A buyer who finds their home through a ChatGPT-style interface that sources data from multiple platforms, including Booli or direct agent websites, does not need to be on Hemnet at all. Hemnet's response (building conversational search, integrating with ChatGPT) is proactive, but the risk of being disintermediated before the response scales is real. This is a lower-probability but potentially high-impact risk over a 3-5 year horizon.

Premium Packaging Saturation

The mechanism: ARPL growth is driven by sellers upgrading to higher tiers. At some point, the proportion of sellers choosing Premium and Max reaches a ceiling - either because lower-value properties cannot justify the cost of Max, or because sellers in a slow market resist spending on advertising when homes sell slowly regardless. Q3 2025 data already showed ARPL growth slowing (21% vs. 35-43% in earlier periods). If mix-upgrading saturates while base price increases slow (as management has guided), ARPL growth will naturally decelerate toward a lower steady-state rate, potentially below the 15-20% revenue growth target.

CEO Transition Risk

Jonas Gustafsson replaced Cecilia Beck-Friis in February 2025 after Beck-Friis led the business through its IPO and the entire 2021-2024 growth arc. Gustafsson came from media and pay-TV (Allente, Nordic Entertainment Group) rather than property technology. His stated focus on technology, user experience, and agent relationships is consistent with Hemnet's needs, but the transition coincided with a period of competitive pressure (Booli/Fastighetsbyrán), market difficulty (listing volume declines), and a more complex product portfolio (Max, pay-on-sale, AI features). Managing this combination while establishing credibility with agents who are already agitated by pricing history adds execution risk.

9. Walk the Talk

Q3 2024 (October 2024) - CEO Cecilia Beck-Friis

The Q3 2024 call was a period of peak momentum. The new agent compensation model, launched July 1, 2024, was already producing results: two in three sellers were upgrading to Plus or Premium, Premium conversions had more than doubled year-on-year, and net sales were up 37%. Beck-Friis stated the business had "matured into a fantastic organization" and indicated that 2025 would feature continued product expansion without disclosing specifics. She guided that current cost run rates represented normalized activity levels post the 2023 caution period, and that the share buyback program (SEK 450 million) would extend to the 2025 AGM.

What actually happened: the product expansion commitment was met - Hemnet Max launched April 1, 2025, and the sell-first-pay-later program followed. The cost run rate guidance was broadly accurate for Q1 and Q2 2025. The business delivered on the promise of continued ARPL growth, though listing volumes deteriorated more sharply than the Q3 2024 tone suggested.

Q4 2024 (January 31, 2025) - CEO Cecilia Beck-Friis (final call)

Beck-Friis presented exceptional full-year 2024 results (39% revenue growth, 37% EBITDA growth) and announced her departure and Gustafsson's appointment. She described Hemnet Max as arriving "in spring 2025" and characterized the new compensation model as driving "significant net sales and EBITDA growth." The dividend was increased 40% to SEK 1.70 per share, proposed for AGM approval. She noted that slower ARPL price growth was expected ahead while maintaining "multiple ARPL levers." She expressed confidence the company "will continue to flourish under Jonas' leadership."

What actually happened: Hemnet Max launched on schedule (April 1, 2025). ARPL continued to grow strongly in H1 2025. The dividend was paid as proposed. The warning about slower price growth was vindicated by Q3 and Q4 2025 results. Beck-Friis was not wrong about the direction, but the pace of the housing market deterioration in H2 2025 was more severe than the Q4 2024 tone implied.

Q1 2025 (April 25, 2025) - CEO Jonas Gustafsson (first call)

Gustafsson's first public appearance as CEO. He struck a measured tone: strong Q1 results (29.6% revenue growth, 37% ARPL growth), but a frank acknowledgment that listing volumes were under pressure from macroeconomic uncertainty. He confirmed the successful launch of Hemnet Max and guided that operating expenses would grow more slowly in 2025 than in 2024, with gradual decline through the year. He maintained the 15-20% long-term revenue growth target without providing annual guidance.

The B2B segment declined 3% in Q1 2025, confirming the display advertising headwinds that Beck-Friis had flagged in Q4 2024. Gustafsson did not attempt to minimize this. He guided that sessions per user would decrease from post-pandemic patterns - a candid signal about demand normalization that proved accurate in subsequent quarters.

What actually happened: Q2 2025 was strong (19.4% growth), but H2 2025 deteriorated sharply. The listing volume declines in Q3 (down 19%) and Q4 (down 26%) drove revenue below the level that Gustafsson's measured Q1 tone implied was possible. The 15-20% full-year target was clearly missed at 9.5% for 2025. Gustafsson did not explicitly commit to 9.5%+ for 2025 - he never gave annual guidance - but maintaining a 15-20% long-term target while delivering 9.5% in the first year of his tenure created a gap between aspiration and reality.

Q2 2025 (July 2025) - CEO Jonas Gustafsson

Q2 2025 was the last strong quarter. Net sales grew 19.4%, EBITDA margins expanded 0.6 percentage points to 54%, and ARPL grew 35%. Gustafsson reaffirmed the 15-20% annual growth target and the 55% EBITDA margin long-term goal. He announced the expansion of the share buyback program from SEK 450 million to SEK 600 million. He described Hemnet Max as showing a "strong value proposition" in its early days. The Q2 call's tone was notably confident about the company's ability to grow through a "softer property market."

"We delivered strong performance in Q2 with continued growth despite the softer property market... strong sales growth paired with operating leverage." - Jonas Gustafsson, Q2 2025

What actually happened: H2 2025 was materially weaker than Q2 implied. Published listings fell 19% in Q3 and 26% in Q4. Revenue declined in both quarters. The sharply worse H2 made the confident Q2 tone feel disconnected from where the business landed. The expanded buyback was executed (SEK 160 million in Q4 alone), demonstrating capital allocation consistency but not offset the earnings miss.

Q3 2025 (October 23, 2025) - CEO Jonas Gustafsson

Gustafsson changed tone in Q3. Net sales declined 1.5%, paid listings dropped 19.2%, EBITDA fell 5.9%. He acknowledged the market headwinds directly: "the largest price hikes are over, and we focus on value-based pricing." He introduced the "pay only when you sell" concept explicitly for the first time as a structural response to market friction. He maintained the long-term 15-20% growth target but noted that the mix toward product adoption (rather than price increases) was the growth engine going forward. He signaled expected "operational leverage in 2026-2027" as investments from 2024-2025 season.

This was the most honest call of the four. Gustafsson did not pretend Q3 was consistent with the long-term targets. He pivoted from explaining growth to explaining the strategy to restart it. The sell-first-pay-later pilot was announced; Hemnet Insights was launched. These are the responses of a CEO who recognized a problem and began addressing it, not one who maintained a rosy narrative into deteriorating results.

Q4 2025 (January 29, 2026) - CEO Jonas Gustafsson

Q4 2025 was the worst quarter by volume (listings down 26.4%), though ARPL growth of 29% partially softened the decline. Gustafsson described the pilot results (4% listing increase at participating offices) as validation for the national rollout. He cited the upcoming mortgage rule changes as a structural catalyst. He announced the dividend increase to SEK 1.90 per share (12% increase year-on-year). He announced formal partnership agreements with 60+ brokerage brands. He did not raise the FY2025 full-year 9.5% revenue growth relative to the 15-20% target - it was implicitly acknowledged in the full-year results.

Overall Management Credibility Assessment: Beck-Friis, in her tenure through Q4 2024, was a credible steward who delivered on operational promises (product launches on schedule, cost guidance accurate, shareholder returns as committed). She was directionally correct about ARPL expansion but the 2024 results exceeded even her own bullish framing.

Gustafsson's first year is harder to assess. He never gave explicit annual revenue guidance, which gives him some cover for missing 15-20% growth in his first year. He pivoted quickly when Q3 data was bad, introducing new strategic responses rather than doubling down on optimistic framing. The Q2 confidence was premature given H2's severity, but he recovered credibility in Q3 and Q4 by speaking plainly about challenges and presenting concrete responses. He appears to be a candid manager who is still finding his footing with this specific business - the combination of agent relationship management (a political problem more than a product problem) and a cyclical market downturn made his first year genuinely difficult.

10. Scenarios

Bull Case

Hemnet enters 2026 with the full tailwind stack aligning simultaneously. Mortgage rule easing on April 1 unblocks first-time buyers who have been sidelined since 2022. Listing volumes recover toward 2024 levels by mid-2026 as pent-up seller demand, suppressed throughout 2025, releases into a market with clearer price signals. The "sell first, pay later" rollout converts hesitant sellers who were sitting on homes they wanted to list but feared the financial commitment. Hemnet Max penetration continues its maturation curve, with an increasing share of sellers choosing the top tier as it becomes the new market standard - just as Premium became standard after Plus.

On the agent side, Gustafsson's 60+ brokerage partnership program stabilizes the Fastighetsbyrán situation. The formal partnership structure (rather than a transactional listing fee relationship) gives large agencies a seat at the table and a financial stake in Hemnet's success rather than a reason to defect. Booli's competitive challenge stalls as Fastighetsbyrán sellers notice that Booli listings generate fewer buyer views and longer selling times, leading the experiment to be quietly wound down.

In this scenario, the combination of volume recovery, continued mix upgrading, and new products (Max, Hemnet Insights, conversational search) drives a return to 15-20%+ revenue growth. EBITDA margins expand toward 55% as operating leverage materializes from the 2024-2025 product investment period. Hemnet begins to close the ARPL gap with REA Group, demonstrating that the Swedish vendor-paid model can reach the same monetization ceiling as the Australian one.

Base Case

The housing market stabilizes in 2026 rather than recovering strongly. Mortgage rule changes provide a modest boost to first-time buyer demand, but global macroeconomic uncertainty (trade wars, interest rate volatility) keeps transaction volumes in the 155,000-165,000 range - not collapsing, but not recovering to the 2021-2022 peak. Listing volumes on Hemnet drift back toward flat year-on-year as the sharp 2025 declines create easier comparables.

ARPL growth continues at a more modest 15-20% pace as Hemnet Max adoption gradually spreads and the package mix continues upgrading. The sell-first-pay-later model captures incremental seller demand at the margin but does not produce a step-change in listing volumes. The Booli/Fastighetsbyrán situation remains a persistent background concern but does not escalate dramatically - Fastighetsbyrán's 30% opt-out rate stabilizes rather than growing, and the other major chains do not follow.

In this scenario, Hemnet achieves 10-14% revenue growth in 2026-2027, approaching but not quite reaching the 15-20% target. Margins expand gradually as cost growth moderates. The business remains highly cash-generative, returning capital through dividends and buybacks while investing in product development. The competitive and market dynamics are managed but not resolved.

Bear Case

The housing market enters a second extended downturn. Global trade concerns and persistent geopolitical uncertainty suppress consumer confidence through 2026. The April mortgage rule changes fail to produce the expected first-time buyer stimulus because the fundamental affordability problem - high prices relative to incomes - remains unsolved by removing amortization requirements. Listing volumes fail to recover and may decline further, as the structural inventory backlog (the 68,000+ homes sitting unsold as of late 2025) continues to suppress new supply additions.

On the competitive front, the Fastighetsbyrán-Booli dynamic escalates. A second major brokerage chain follows Fastighetsbyrán in formally partnering with Booli and routing clients away from Hemnet. Sellers in competitive markets notice that Booli has gained genuine traffic and begin using both portals simultaneously, reducing Hemnet's exclusive listing advantage. The Competition Authority launches a formal investigation of Hemnet's agent compensation model and restricts the commission structure, removing the most powerful upsell mechanism introduced in July 2024.

ARPL growth slows as the mix-upgrade ceiling approaches and base price increases are restrained by pricing sensitivity backlash. B2B display advertising continues declining as the Swedish new-build construction market remains depressed. Revenue growth turns negative or flat in this scenario. Margins compress as fixed costs remain high against declining revenue. The combination of volume pressure, competitive erosion, and regulatory headwinds challenges the entire growth narrative that has driven Hemnet's premium valuation since its 2021 IPO.

Sources:

• Hemnet Group Q4 2024 Interim Report - Nasdaq
• Hemnet Group Q4 2025 Interim Report - Hemnet Group
• Q4 2024 Earnings Call Highlights - Yahoo Finance
• Q1 2025 Earnings Call Highlights - Yahoo Finance
• Q3 2025 Earnings Call Highlights - Yahoo Finance
• Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript - Investing.com
• Hemnet Products and Services - Hemnet Group
• Hemnet FY2024 Annual Report
• IPO Analysis - Andvari Associates
• Hemnet Property Powerhouse Analysis - Spheria
• Hemnet Q4 FY2024 ARPL Analysis - Online Marketplaces
• Hemnet vs REA Group Vendor Paid Advertising - Online Marketplaces
• Booli Partnership Analysis - Online Marketplaces
• Hemnet Sell First Pay Later - Online Marketplaces
• Hemnet Year in Review 2025 - Hemnet Group
• Hemnet Max Launch - Hemnet Group
• Jonas Gustafsson CEO Appointment - Hemnet Group
• Hemnet $6 Billion Collapse Article - Yahoo Finance
• Hemnet Alpha Spread Investor Relations