ZipRealty Plunges Following Fourth Quarter Miss

On Monday,

reported disappointing fourth quarter results. The company's EPS of a loss of $0.17 missed the consensus estimate by two cents. Revenue of $16.98 million beat the consensus estimate by $0.11 million despite declining from $17.69 million in the same quarter last year. Net loss for the quarter rose to $3.7 million, compared to a net loss of $2 million in the same quarter last year. The company noted that its net losses included a $1.7 million expense for a legal settlement resolving the final outstanding claim relating to former compensation practices of employee real estate agents. ZipRealty's total real estate sales value slowed from eight percent growth in the first nine of months of 2013 to a four percent decline in the quarter. The company performed “slightly better” on total home sales value relative to the markets the company serves but not well enough to offset the reduced overall trend resulting in a transaction revenue in the quarter that underperformed prior expectations. Lanny Baker, Chief Executive Officer and President of ZipREalty believes that there is a “historic transition” taking place which complements the type of digital operating practices that it “pioneered.” “Through recruiting technology-oriented agents into our brokerage unit and extending our end-to-end platform to other forward-thinking brokerages through PbZ [“powered by Zip”], we believe we are positioned to capitalize on these opportunities,” Baker said. ZipRealty issued guidance and sees its first quarter revenue to be in-between $12 million and $12.5 million. Additionally, the company sees its first quarter adjusted EBITDA to be negative $3.5 million to negative $3 million. Shares of ZipRealty were trading lower by 15.90 percent in Tuesday's early afternoon trading session.