Operator: Welcome to Hemnet's Q3 conference call. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing #5 on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers. Please go ahead.
Jonas Gustafsson: Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to this 2026 Q3 release call for Hemnet Group. My name is Jonas Gustafsson, and I am the Group CEO of Hemnet. With me here on my side today at our headquarters in Stockholm, I have our Chief Financial Officer, Peter Messner, and our Head of Investor Relations, Ludvig Segelmark. As usual, we will go through the presentation that was published on our website earlier this morning during today's session. I will start and kick it off with a summary of the main highlights during the third quarter of 2026 and a recap of the game-changing news that we announced a few weeks back in late September. Thereafter, Peter will cover the financial details before I will come back in the end to summarize and wrap up today's session. As always, there will be opportunities to ask questions at the end of the presentation.
Jonas Gustafsson: Today's session will be moderated by our operator, so please follow the operator's instructions to ask questions through the provided dial-in details. Let's get started, and let's move to slide 3, please. To summarize the main events and the highlights of the third quarter. First of all, we announced important strategic initiatives during the third quarter, including free listing tiers, an updated compensation model, and a cost-saving program. With these actions, we are taking decisive and game-changing steps to build a better Hemnet for buyers, for sellers, and for agents. It means that we are conducting a strategic pivot for full market coverage and continued market leadership. Secondly, during the past couple of weeks and months, we have adopted a new approach to product development with a clearer focus on providing the best possible experience for all property buyers in Sweden.
Jonas Gustafsson: As a part of this, we have rolled out significant user experience improvements during October, including the OneList search experience, and we are just getting started. When looking at the financials for Q3, net sales decreased by 17.8%, driven by lower listing volumes paired with a timing shift in revenue recognition from Sell first, pay later. Published listings amounted to 36.2 thousand and were down by 13%, while paid listings amounted to 29.2 thousand, with a difference in paid and published listings being explained by Sell first, pay later listings and under-the-radar listings. The EBITDA margin amounted to 47.8%, 5.5 percentage points lower year on year due to declining listing volumes that impacted net sales and resulted in lower fixed cost leverage. Now, let us turn to slide 4 for a closer look at the financial performance.
Jonas Gustafsson: Net sales amounted to 302 million SEK, down by 17.8% compared to the same period last year, driven by lower listing volumes and a revenue recognition effect from Sell first, pay later that continues to impact revenues. EBITDA decreased by 26.2% to 144.1 million SEK. The decrease was driven by the lower listing volumes, which impacted net sales and reduced fixed cost leverage. The EBITDA margin amounted to 47.8%. Peter will break down the profitability dynamics in more detail as we move on in the presentation. Now, let us turn to page 5 for a look at the property market and the listing volumes. On the right-hand side of this slide, you will see a combined chart showing published listings per quarter and yearly published listings, as well as the year-on-year change between quarters. Published listings decreased by 13% in Q3 and by 20.5% on a last 12-month basis.
Jonas Gustafsson: Average LPM listing duration on Hemnet in Q3 increased to 65 days, up from 64 days in Q2 2026 and 52 days in Q3 2025. Over the last months, we are seeing that the time it takes to sell properties on the platform is coming down, although it is not yet visible in the LPM number. Looking at the overall property market, we are seeing clear signs of a market that is gaining some momentum. Improved economic conditions accelerate transactions while pushing apartment prices to record highs and reducing inventory levels. Going forward, we should expect this to be a driver of more listings coming to market as well. Let us move on to the important strategic initiatives that we communicated in late September and that we are rolling out this and next week. In late September, we announced a number of important strategic initiatives for Hemnet.
Jonas Gustafsson: First, we announced the introduction of free entry-level listing formats to gather the complete public market inventory into a single user-centered search experience on Hemnet. In addition, we also announced that we are simplifying and improving the paid package structure. Secondly, we are updating our compensation model for real estate agent offices, introducing a simplified and more predictable structure for commission that focuses on paid listing conversion. Thirdly, we are streamlining our operations to build a faster, leaner, and more agile Hemnet. This is expected to yield annualized cost savings of approximately 80 to 85 million SEK. We broke this down in detail in the conference call that we held on 29 September, but we also want to take this opportunity to talk them through. Now, let us move to the next slide, please. Hemnet is uniquely positioned in the Swedish property market.
Jonas Gustafsson: We have superior traffic and superior reach compared to our competitors, and we are substantially bigger than the two in the market. This is a market and a brand position that we have built over the last 25 years. We also have a unique position in the market, thanks to our agent relationships. Hemnet was founded by real estate agents more than 25 years ago, and we continue to engage and work with the real estate agent community in Sweden every single day. Our market position also means that we have access to more and better data than anyone else in the market, on which we are able to build an even stronger platform going forward, not at least through the use of AI. Most of all, Hemnet has a platform that works.
Jonas Gustafsson: Sellers and agents all know that if you want to sell a property in Sweden, buying a Hemnet ad is the most effective way to do it. With that, let us move on to the next slide, please. We are expanding our platform to gather all publicly available listings into a single unified search experience. We are doing this by introducing two new entry-level listing formats, a free entry-level option for real estate agents that we launched on Tuesday, paired with automatically aggregated listings, which is going live next week. In practice, this means that all publicly available listings will be made available on Hemnet by the end of October. With all listings available on Hemnet, we reinforce our position as Sweden's leading property portal, simplifying the search process for home seekers while maximizing visibility for sellers and agents.
Jonas Gustafsson: On Tuesday, we also further simplified and strengthened our package structure as Hemnet Bas replaced Hemnet Plus, incorporating all the various features and visibility of Plus into Bas, but remaining at the Bas price point. The product design is geared to create the best possible buyer experience while delivering clear upgrade incentives for high-intent sellers and agents to reduce paid listing cannibalization over time. Just as today, upgrading to a paid marketing package will remain the most effective way to reach Hemnet's full buyer audience and create maximum interest to ensure a successful transaction. Let us move to the next slide, please. What does this mean for our platform? We are moving from having approximately 55% of all published listings at a given time to aiming to have all publicly available listings on Hemnet.
Jonas Gustafsson: This will mean that we will move from being the number 1 platform in Sweden on traffic and reach, to being the number 1 property platform on traffic, reach, and supply. We will continue to focus on high-intent sellers and by becoming the single source platform for all new properties that come to the market. With high-intent sellers prioritized, we increase the value of our paid listing packages. Over time, our ambition is to build the world's best property platform. Hemnet has a unique market position and a business model in an international context, and we are now taking decisive game-changing steps to significantly improve the product. With a new operating model in place and a faster and leaner organization, we will be even better positioned to take more product innovation to market and further improve the user experience at a much more rapid pace.
Jonas Gustafsson: With the new model, we create an even stronger alignment with real estate agents and remove all barriers to list on Hemnet from day 1. We are also strengthening our platform for all advertisement partners and ensuring that we become an even stronger platform with growing reach and impressions. Now, let's move to slide 10, please. We are streamlining our operations to build a faster, a leaner, and a more agile Hemnet. With this new operating model in place, we now have a faster and leaner organization with few decision layers. We are doing this to ensure that we have the best possible structure to be able to substantially increase output and transform Hemnet's platform to provide the best user experience for buyers, sellers, and agents. New technology is also changing the way we operate, and we are seeing that AI is driving real operational efficiencies across the organization.
Jonas Gustafsson: With approximately 85% of our code now being written by AI, we are able to do much more with a smaller team. on 1 October, we announced the appointment of Marcus Hartwall as new Chief Commercial Officer with the responsibility for Hemnet sales and partner organization. I am very happy that Marcus has agreed to join us and take on these responsibilities. Marcus has extensive hands-on experience from scaling digital marketplaces and property portals, most recently from Daft, Ireland's leading property platform, where he ran the business as Managing Director. Marcus will work to deepen our partnerships with agents and help them leverage the full value of Hemnet's paid products and services. Next slide, please. As I stated earlier during the presentation, we as a company have adopted a new approach to product development with a clear focus on providing the best possible experience for all property buyers in Sweden.
Jonas Gustafsson: With our new operating model, we are now able to roll out more features and platform improvements, and we have listed a few examples on this slide of what we have launched in October. We have wanted to find a better product design that makes it easier and more intuitive for buyers to find homes that are listed as Kommande and to connect with agents that sell homes. Therefore, we launched a unified OneList search experience in early October that make it easier for buyers to find home and connect with agents while increasing visibility for sellers. The initial results have been promising. The share of users that click on Kommande listings was up by 90% in the first week, while we also saw substantial improvement in engagement and lead generation.
Jonas Gustafsson: During October, we also launched new updated signs on real estate agent products and contact forms, paired with continuous platform innovation to further strengthen the buyer experience, including a new and improved search result layout and updated filters. Next week, we are rolling out external listings on the platform, meaning that all publicly available listings will be on Hemnet. This will be followed by the new compensation model, which will go into effect from 1 November. All in all, we are entering a completely new phase for Hemnet. We are delivering on our most ambitious product enhancement pipeline to date to drive a superior experience for buyers, for sellers, and for agents. With that, I will hand over to Peter for the financial update, starting with page 12. Peter, please take it from here.
Peter Messner: Thank you, Jonas, and good morning from my end as well. Let's move to page 13 and the financial summary for Q3 2026. Jonas already talked about the development of published and paid listings during the quarter, which were down by 13% and 29.6% respectively. As a reminder, the difference between published and paid listings are the Sell first, pay later listings that are not yet sold by the end of the quarter, and where no revenues are recognized yet, as well as the under-the-radar, or in Swedish, under radarn listings. As a consequence, total net sales declined by 17.8% to SEK 301.5 million. ARPL, the average revenue per paid listing, grew 9.2%, where growth reflects minor price adjustments from early in the year, the SFPL sustained level of demand for our value-added services.
Peter Messner: EBITDA for the quarter amounted to SEK 144.1 million and corresponds to a margin of 47.8%. Increase in leverage to 1.3x is an effect of our free cash flow development together with the active capital allocation policy, and I'll get back to both later on in my part. We ended the quarter with a headcount of 174 employees, somewhat above last year's level, and not yet representing the organizational changes that we announced at the end of September. From that summary, let's turn to page 14 and get into financial details, starting with our revenues by segment. As always, our largest revenue segment is the B2C segment, representing revenues from property sellers, which generated revenues of SEK 248.7 million and represent over 80% of total sales. In the B2B segment, all revenue streams were continuously impacted by lower listing volumes and resulting lower display sales.
Peter Messner: On a positive note there, revenue from property developers improved slightly as a result of new annual subscription packages. All in all, the B2B segment was down 2.8% and showed continued resilience despite the much lower listing volumes in display sales. With that, let's continue on next page with our EBITDA bridge. As can be seen on the chart on the left-hand side, the main year-on-year driver in EBITDA decline is the decrease in net sales, and that, as previously mentioned, is a result of the lower listing volumes. The compensation to real estate agents lowered in line with the decline in revenue for property sellers, and the resulting net impact is SEK 48.6 million on 95% of that total EBITDA decline year-on-year.
Peter Messner: Other external expenses decreased by SEK 5.6 million, which is the result of certain cost optimization measures that we already started in Q3, as well as marketing expenses being moved into Q4. Personnel costs increased by SEK 9.4 million, where the comparable period was, however, positively impacted by a SEK 5.3 million bonus accrual reversal. And with a SEK 1.1 million slightly higher capitalized development expenditure, total EBITDA for the quarter amounted and landed at SEK 144.1 million. With that, let's move to page 18 and our cash flow and financial position. The rolling 12-month free cash flow amounted to SEK 557 million and reflects the trends of EBITDA development and lower listing volumes. Still, the business maintains a strong cash conversion of 99.5%, which highlights the continued strength and quality in our business model. I mentioned the active capital allocation policy earlier.
Peter Messner: The chart in the middle on this page shows our share buybacks. During Q3, we repurchased over 1.4 million shares for a total of 132 million SEK. As announced in the beginning of September, Hemnet's board of directors resolved to pause the share purchase program with effect from 14 September in order to provide full financial flexibility during the transformative phase that the company now entered into. Finally, let's turn to net debt and leverage shown on the right-hand chart on this page. Hemnet has a total revolving credit facility of 900 million SEK, of which 870 million SEK have been utilized. The facility consists of a larger tranche of 600 million SEK that matures in May 2028, and a smaller tranche of 300 million SEK that matures in April next year.
Peter Messner: As a result, net debt amounted to 718 million SEK and corresponds to a leverage ratio of 1.3x. While showing an increasing trend during the last quarters, there is still quite some headroom in our own long-term financial target of below 2x. With that, I conclude the financial summary for Q3. Before handing back to Jonas, let me update you again on what we shared three weeks ago as part of our strategic initiatives announcement and what the current status is. Let's turn to page 17. Jonas already mentioned that in connection with the launch of free listings and other package improvements, we shared previously that we are also updating and simplifying our compensation model to real estate agent firms.
Peter Messner: As a start for real estate agent offices that have a general cooperation agreement with Hemnet in place, each published paid listing will generate a 600 SEK administration fee in the same way as it does today. In addition, and over that, the new compensation model will provide for a commission of 20% or 30% of revenue generated per paid listing, depending on the chosen package, and that is now new, also including Hemnet's Bas package, and all of that is subject to an agent recommendation for a paid package. Per published paid listing, there is a 4,000 SEK commission cap, including the admin fee, to ensure that the model is sustainable in the longer term. This updated model will be effective from the end of next week from 1 November. Let's turn to the next page and the organizational streamlining we announced in late September.
Peter Messner: What we also announced three weeks ago was that streamlining of operations to build a faster, leaner, and more agile organization. By streamlining operations, we are modernizing workflows, we are shortening decision paths, and Hemnet will be better positioned to accelerate product innovation and ultimately improve the customer experience of our offering. Where do we stand with the restructuring? All union and individual negotiations were carried out now during October and are completed, and the shift to a new operating model in terms of the organization is now ongoing. The program is expected to deliver annualized cost savings, as Jonas mentioned, of 80 to 85 million SEK as compared to the expenses run rate as of Q2 this year, and the full run rate effect on costs are expected after Q1 2027.
Peter Messner: The number of employees will be reduced from 184 as of the end of Q2 2026 to roughly 115 employees. We now expect that the one-time restructuring charges are SEK 36 to 37 million and will be recognized as an item affecting comparability on the group's income statement in the forthcoming Q4 2026. With that update, I hand back to Jonas for a summary of today's session.
Jonas Gustafsson: Thank you, Peter. Let's turn to page 20. To wrap it up and to summarize, net sales and paid listings in the third quarters were negatively impacted by Sell first, pay later, where revenues are recognized upon property sold rather than over the listing period. We are now taking decisive steps to restore Hemnet as the most efficient and powerful property portal for buyers, for sellers, and for agents. We are strengthening our market position through a combination of traffic leadership and listing supply leadership. By combining our scale with a complete market, offering a more agile and efficient organization, and strengthened commercial leadership, we unlock new opportunities for Hemnet. We are delivering on our most ambitious product enhancement pipeline to date to drive a superior user experience. A new Hemnet is taking shape, built to win the next phase. With that, I'll conclude the upfront section and let's open up for the Q&A.
Operator: If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Georg Attling, from Pareto Securities. Please go ahead.
Georg Attling: Good morning, both of you. I have a couple of questions. I appreciate it has only been live for 2 days. But is there anything you could say on the reception of these free listings, both from agents and sellers?
Jonas Gustafsson: Good morning, Georg. Basically, per your point, we have been live 48 hours. But what we can say that the reception so far has been very, very positive. We have seen a strong initial demand for the product and a lot of new free listings coming to Hemnet. That is where we are, but it is a bit difficult to draw any conclusions. But what we can say, positive.
Georg Attling: Okay. Related to that topic as well. Now we will have the aggregated listings soon rolled out. Will they look like the agent-controlled free listings or will they materially differ visibly?
Jonas Gustafsson: In terms of the product proposition and the way the aggregated listings will look, they will look slightly different. They will have less pictures, less description on the individual listing. From a tiered perspective, the free uploaded listings are stronger than the aggregated ones.
Georg Attling: Yeah. Just so I understand, these will be published directly on your website, and then the agents can sort of claim them and have it as an agent-controlled free listing or upgrade it to a paid listing.
Jonas Gustafsson: Absolutely. So there will be opportunities for the agents to convert them from potentially an aggregated listing into a free uploaded listing and then later on to a paid listings. You can skip the various steps in between, but there is a clear up-sell funnel related to the product launches.
Georg Attling: Yeah. That is clear. Just a final question on SFPL removals. So, off the SFPL listings published so far, do you know what share has been removed without a completed transaction?
Peter Messner: Hi, Georg. Peter here. I think you referred to what share of SFPL listings that came on the platform were unsold and therefore removed again, or what is exactly the question? Can you repeat that?
Georg Attling: Yeah. The question is, obviously you have more published listings than paid listings, and you would expect this to catch up. But those listings on SFPL that are removed before a transaction takes place, obviously you won't get paid. I'm sort of wondering about the leakage, if you will, of these SFPL listings and how many actually go all the way through the funnel to a transaction.
Peter Messner: Well, we would not disclose that number. We are following that up. It is not a very high number, though.
Georg Attling: Okay. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you.
Peter Messner: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Giles Thorne, from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Giles Thorne: Thank you. My first question was for Jonas, and it is on the new board. Jonas, it would be interesting to hear you talk about your appreciation for why this happened, what the ambitions of the new board are, and what the broader implications are. The second question is on the new free listing model. The headline targets around leadership and content are very clear. I would be interested to hear, Jonas, what are the second-order benefits you are hoping to unlock in 1 year or 2 years down the track? Then, a very simple question, I guess again for Jonas, feedback on the agent compensation model. Any feedback so far, please.
Jonas Gustafsson: Good morning, Giles. I will take them one by one. Per your point, we have a new board of directors that have been in place for roughly 6 weeks. Still a lot of onboarding that is going on. I think that why it happened, I do not want to comment that specifically. I do not think it is up to me to justify that. But what I can say is that I think the collaboration with the new board has started very strong. What we are bringing in is definitely a lot of product expertise. I think just looking at all the different things and all the different products that we now ship and the ambitious pipeline that we refer to as part of the presentation, that is an ambition to become much more fast in our product development.
Jonas Gustafsson: The second question, in terms of the supply leadership, I think that is the big strategic rationale, per your point, ensuring that we have all the listings on the platform is something that we clearly see as a key strategic pillar for us. With traffic and with listings, or with listings comes traffic, with traffic comes eyeballs, and also, I think a key component here is obviously when introducing the free tiers that we have. With more traffic, we are obviously strengthening the value of our paid proposition, given the fact that we will get more traffic and we will get more eyeballs. I think that is number 1 of the key benefits that I would think about.
Jonas Gustafsson: Number 2 is that I think if you look at Hemnet and the various opportunities, if you go beyond our core business being the listings, I think with full supply, and having all the listings on the platform, there are multiple opportunities that opens up to have integrated marketing formats for relevant target groups. I think the most obvious one is sort of mortgage leads, and that is something that we have had in our portfolio. I think that product should be strengthened. I think there is a lot of more value to that. But there is also other adjacent areas. You have home alarm, you have insurances, you have broadband services, and the list can go on for quite some time. But I think this opens up new opportunities.
Jonas Gustafsson: But the key sort of component is obviously to strengthen the core business and also strengthening the value of our paid packages. Giles, can you please repeat the third question? It was a bit difficult to hear that one.
Giles Thorne: Yeah, no problem. It was the simplest question. I was looking for feedback from agents on the new compensation model.
Jonas Gustafsson: Thank you. In terms of the feedback on the compensation model, obviously, it is kicking in by 1 November, but we have done a quite substantial roadshow. I think the appreciation from the feedback has been that it is much more simple. It is a simplified model, and clearly sort of creates an incentive to ensure that you maximize the share of paid listings on the platform. I think, given the fact that this is an important component to the P&L of many office owners, there is an interest to understanding what this means for us. So, the sales team is out in their cars and meeting a lot of franchise owners at this point.
Giles Thorne: Okay. That is great. Thank you very much.
Operator: The next question comes from Nicola Kalinowski from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Nikola Kalanoski: Yeah. Hey, gents. Just a few questions from me. Firstly on the free tier launch, I guess it is a bit of a modified question to one asked previously. When I look at our own tracker, I can see that the number of free listings that were published on the first day was something like 2 to 3 times higher than the historical daily average of listings.
Nikola Kalanoski: I appreciate it is only one day. It was very special. But is this outside in view, consistent with some of the early data that you have seen? Do you think that this figure is impacted by agents uploading listings of their stale inventory, so to speak, that has previously only been available outside of Hemnet?
Jonas Gustafsson: Good morning, Nicola. Per your point, we have been live 2 days now. We launched on Tuesday, so live Tuesday and Wednesday. It seems like your tracker is doing a good job. It is in line with what we have seen, 2 to 3x, in terms of total listings coming to the platform. It is in line with our expectations that you would see a catch-up effect initially. I think it is exactly what the various buckets of those listings that actually come in are, is difficult to say just based on 2 days. But I think it is a combination of a catch-up effect of old inventory that has not been on Hemnet, but also completely new published listings coming to Hemnet.
Jonas Gustafsson: What you will see over the coming weeks and the coming months is that catch-up effect, where you probably have a higher share of free listings than paid listings in terms of the distribution, just because of the catch-up effect. I think it seems like your observation is very much in line with our observations.
Nikola Kalanoski: Yeah. Okay. That's perfect and comforting to hear. Secondly, when I was browsing your app, I think it was yesterday, I saw on the map view that you'd launched this feature that allows me to see a list of homes that are not on the market, so homes that are not even listed, and that the underlying data comes from Lantmäteriet. It seems to align with your ambition to have as much relevant supply on your platform, so to speak, not necessarily only listings, but also info and data. What's the goal with this type of a feature? Should we expect more of these features that aren't necessarily monetizable, if you will?
Jonas Gustafsson: I think what you've seen is the very specific product enhancement. We are convinced that Hemnet will become successful if we have the best buyer experience. The best buyer experience entails adjacent data points that is relevant to the buyer. Good catch. What you've picked up is that we are improving and strengthening different data points on historical data on the properties. We think it's relevant for a buyer to also understand what has been around in that specific region or in that specific municipality or in that specific area. I think with the new ambition of becoming much faster and also launching more product for the buyers, this is a typical example.
Nikola Kalanoski: Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. That's all for me. Thanks.
Jonas Gustafsson: Thanks.
Operator: The next question comes from Yulia Kazakovtseva from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yulia Kazakovtseva: Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I have three, if that's okay. My first one would be on under the radar listings. Could you please update us on how many under the radar listings have been published since launch? And what proportion of those listings you believe are incremental? In other words, what proportion of them you think would not land on Hemnet if under the radar option was not available? My second question would be on the upcoming listings. On your website, it looks like you sort of discontinued that section, like maybe it's included now in the main section. If you could please elaborate on this, what was the rationale of that step, and if you see any disruption from that step in October listings.
Yulia Kazakovtseva: It would also be helpful if you could comment on the dynamics in published listings you reported on your website over the past 2 weeks compared to September. Finally, my last question would be on marketing costs. In Q3, you reported a significant decrease year on year. What should we think about Q4, particularly in light of these new launches? Do you think in Q4, marketing could be up year on year? Thank you.
Jonas Gustafsson: Good morning, Iulia. I'll take the lead and then Peter just chip in on a few details. In terms of under the radar listings, the actual number is not something that we disclose, so I don't want to comment on that. To take one step back, since launching in July, we've seen positive results from under the radar, where we have attracted additional listing volumes, and we've seen a conversion to paid in line with our expectations, offsetting any negative cannibalization. It's important to keep in mind before trying to draw conclusions regarding our free listing tiers, that the products are not one-to-one comparable. But generally speaking, we're very optimistic regarding our free listing tier and continued conversion to paid going forward. Then, in terms of your second question of combining, because that's basically what we did.
Jonas Gustafsson: We combined the Kommande tab with the Till salu tab, and that would be in English, essentially combining the upcoming listing tab with the on sale listing tab. The main rationale for this, going back a bit to what Nicolas asked about before, is we want to create the best buyer experience. We think that having both upcoming listings and on sale listings in the same tab, that is an enhanced user experience. The buyer will essentially not be, or they won't need to be able to click in between different tabs. That's just product innovation and product enhancement. As we referred to as part of the presentation earlier, what we've seen is an uptick in terms of the visibility for upcoming listings. I think on the first really number of visits were up with close to 90%.
Jonas Gustafsson: It is product enhancement, strengthening the user experience, and especially focusing on buyers. Then in terms of marketing costs, obviously don't want to comment too much. What I can say before handing over to Peter is obviously that in Q4, we are launching quite some big product initiatives, as we've spoken about, and that's something that everyone deserves to hear about.
Peter Messner: That's how, Yulia, that already answers that question about what to expect from a marketing spend. You're totally right. As I mentioned in my part of the presentation earlier, marketing spend was considerably down in Q3, and part of that effect is simply moving marketing measures into Q4 in line with the product launches that started now this week and that will be completed with the aggregated listings next week. You can expect a temporary lift in marketing expenses because that is essentially a marketing measure package that serves the launch of these products.
Yulia Kazakovtseva: Thank you, and just a follow-up. With regards to the latest 2 weeks of data you reported on the website and how it compares to September, can you please summarize key drivers one more time?
Jonas Gustafsson: Sorry, Yulia. In terms of the October listing volumes, I think obviously we communicate that we are launching two free alternative options, and we announced that on 29 September. Then we went live on 20 October. What we have seen is some hesitation during that period of time, and the hesitation has primarily been driven by you want to see and understand how the new formats look like. I think what we have seen and what we also referred to as part of Georg or Georg and Nicola's questions up front, we have seen a catch-up effect here over the first 48 hours. I think that is the main driver.
Yulia Kazakovtseva: Understood. Thank you very much.
Operator: The next question comes from Doyinsola Ojo from Citi. Please go ahead.
Doyinsola Ojo: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a couple that have been touched on, so any additional color would be great. The first is on the increased inventory capture. I understand that it is going to drive up published listings, and it will not necessarily drive up paid listings. Given that we are expecting a benefit from SFPL in Q4, can you just give a bit more color on what we should think about in terms of conversion in Q4 and as we go into 2027?
Peter Messner: Yeah. Let me start. Hi, good morning. We cannot announce anything or guide you or put some flavor for 2027. It is a little bit too early with the developments now on the free listings. But when it comes to what to immediately expect, well, I mean, totally, we are going to quite heavily increase the published listings on the platform as an effect of introducing the free tier, both with the free published listings, so actively published by agents, which we have an ambition of, obviously, to be as high as possible, and to be complemented by the aggregated listings. So that in itself, and Jonas was in that a little earlier, the catch-up effect, you should expect in the short term here, a difference between the published listings and the paid listings.
Peter Messner: And with the previous question of Yulia also around what have we seen in the last 2, 3 weeks, that is definitely the trend, the temporary trend that you should expect that sort of gap. Needless to say, we have a toolkit available here internally when it comes to, and there was a previous question around this as well, to support agents, to support property sellers in their journey on our platform when it comes to upgrading to better products which provide more relevance, which provide more views, which ultimately should lead to a much better successful transaction of the property. So that is all in place, but in the short term, temporarily, you will see the difference between published and paid listings.
Doyinsola Ojo: Thanks. My next question was just around the increased inventory capture again. I think you have touched on the fact that it is going to support B2B. It would be great to understand how long you think some of those effects will take to come through.
Jonas Gustafsson: In terms of that specific question and the B2B, and then if you take one step back, our business is quite simple. The more listings we have, the more traffic we have. There is a clear correlation with number of published listings and also our direct traffic, and I think we have elaborated on this in the past. With a new sort of reality, it creates opportunities, but do not want to specifically comment on what this means in terms of B2B revenue. It also depends on how we want to build the product.
Doyinsola Ojo: Okay. That makes sense. Thanks. My last question is, just again, on some of the Chief Commercial Officer. I think you spoke about the fact that maybe agents can push certain things more effectively or maybe certain products and services that you think should be highlighted are not. Could you maybe touch on what you think in terms of products and services that are available that you feel like are not being flagged as well?
Jonas Gustafsson: It is a bit difficult to hear, so please help me if I understood the question wrongly. With the appointment of the new Chief Commercial Officer, he will obviously have a key responsibility when it comes to our agent-facing activities. I think at the end of the day, what we want to do as a company is to help and support agents with the core business. Their core business is to sell properties. The more properties they sell, the quicker they sell the properties, and the more they can focus on their core business, being talking to sellers and buyers and making transactions happen, the more value we can add. We have a slate of various products today that help them. Everything from statistical guidelines to also marketing opportunities we have sold by us. We have an opportunity to strengthen this much further.
Jonas Gustafsson: Visibility is important for the agent, and that is something that we are focusing on, and we will continue to invest in products that help the agent.
Doyinsola Ojo: I just wanted to check if there were any specific products within that that you wanted to highlight that maybe are not being highlighted as well.
Jonas Gustafsson: No, not necessarily. I think the overall ambition is there, and we will get back when we have product launches also with Marcus going forward.
Doyinsola Ojo: Okay. Thank you very much.
Jonas Gustafsson: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Rasmus Engberg from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Rasmus Engberg: Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Firstly, I just wanted to ask you again on Sell first, pay later. There was a bit more of that impact in this quarter than I had anticipated. Going forward, did you say you anticipated this would continue to be the case? I was just wondering whether the free listing offer might do the same job to some extent, deferring the payment for the customer, although it's of course, a smaller disclosure. You still think that that would be the case, right?
Peter Messner: Hi, Rasmus. Not sure I understand your question. Let me just go back just a second. The SFPL-
Rasmus Engberg: Sorry. Do you think that listings will exceed paid listings again going forward, right?
Peter Messner: Yes, for a certain period of time. Exactly. We would expect the free listings and the entire free layer would, of course, exceed the paid listing. Within the paid listing, you would have an SFPL versus a directly paid share that we would expect is roughly on the same level going forward as well, everything else equal.
Rasmus Engberg: Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. The second question I had was something that we haven't really touched upon, but LLM traffic. Do you have any sort of update on how that developed in Q3, maybe compared to Q2 or as a share of your traffic?
Jonas Gustafsson: Hi, Rasmus. We don't want to go into too much specific details, but I think what we've mentioned in the past that when we announced Q4 and when we had the business update in January, we said that it was below 0.1%. It is still at very low levels. It is going up from there, so it's past 0.1%, but it's still at very, very low levels. It's a rounding error in the larger scheme of things.
Rasmus Engberg: Okay, thanks. Just one final clarification. Did you say that you expect the full effect of the savings by Q2, or how should we model that?
Peter Messner: You should expect. We're obviously taking restructuring costs now in Q4, so the run rate from a P&L perspective will, to the large extent, already reflect the savings in Q1, but not entirely. Entirely, they will be reflected from Q2 onwards.
Rasmus Engberg: Thank you so much.
Jonas Gustafsson: Thank you, Rasmus.
Peter Messner: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Yulia Kazakovtseva from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yulia Kazakovtseva: Yes. Thank you. I have two follow-up questions, if that is okay. My first question would be about the marketing campaign in Stockholm and these discounts, which you offered earlier this quarter. What do you think about the results of that campaign? Are you happy, or what are your key takeaways from that? My second question would be about pricing. As we approach next year, what is your current thinking about underlying price increases in 2027? Thank you.
Jonas Gustafsson: Hi, Yulia. In terms of the marketing campaign, we ran a campaign where we elaborated on the price point in August. We did that also back in 2025, sort of a get back to school, welcome back to school, when the property markets were picking up and we saw higher listing volumes. I think specifically, we are testing different price points just to understand price elasticity. The results were in line with our expectations. Going forward, we would obviously evaluate this, but in the larger scheme of things, quite limited impact. In terms of pricing going forward, that is something that we continuously look at the various price points. We have now done changes to our entire platform, with obviously removing the Hemnet Plus package and upgrading Hemnet Bas. But the most important one being the introduction of a slate of free tier listings.
Jonas Gustafsson: Do not want to comment specifically on prices going forward, but most important right now is to ensure that we deliver on the volumes and the strategic initiatives.
Yulia Kazakovtseva: Thank you very much. This is very helpful. Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Carmen Graves from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Carmen Graves: Appreciating that the free listings tier was just launched, but thinking a little bit more about the longer-term impacts, could you describe how you're thinking about your risk management strategy for the new initiatives in terms of at what point you would become worried about cannibalization and what specific tools you would have to address that situation?
Jonas Gustafsson: Well good morning, Carmen. I mean, Peter's point, right? I mean, we've launched the first dimension of the free listings with a product that was launched 48 hours ago. That's obviously difficult to look at. I think, we have a slate of various things that we can work on. I think most importantly is product features. First of all, at the end of the day, it is how we build the product and how we build the paid product, how we differentiate that, how we create clear value, in the prominence, the relevance of a paid product compared to a free product to motivate the sellers to essentially pay. It goes down to all the various product features, and the list is long. I mean, we have 25, 30 different things that we can work on.
Jonas Gustafsson: We have a package structure that we can look at as well. The compensation model is something that should offset the potential cannibalization. It's essentially the entire company to a very large extent. Per Peter's point before, and was also mentioned, this is something that we closely monitor. Now we've been live for 48 hours, so we can't draw any conclusions. But this is a key and a top priority.
Carmen Graves: Okay, thank you.
Peter Messner: If I may add here to Jonas' points. Think about the current setup before, two days ago where we only had paid listings, but you didn't have a negative cannibalization all towards the Bas package. The largest package has always been the Premium package in the last couple of quarters and for a longer period of time, indicating that there's a strong value add in the better offerings that we have on the platform. That argument doesn't disappear just because we're adding free or aggregated listings to the platform. Yes, the big slate that Jonas is always talking about, that has a lot to do with the conversion setup and the upselling, the conversion work that we will be doing internally.
Carmen Graves: Okay, great. Thank you.
Jonas Gustafsson: Thank you, Carmen.
Operator: There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Jonas Gustafsson: Thank you everyone for joining the call today, and thanks a lot for an extensive set of questions and a lot of great questions. That summarizes it, and that is all from us today. We will conclude today's session and make sure to have a great day. Thank you.
Operator: The host has ended this call. Goodbye.
