Scout24 Q3 2026: Spain Lifts Revenue to €198M but Weighs on Margin

Scout24, the owner of Germany's ImmoScout24 and, since March, Spain's Fotocasa and Habitaclia, grew third-quarter revenue 19.7% to €198.2m. About half of that came from Spain, which also cost the group two points of margin. Highlights include:

• Revenue of €198.2m, up 19.7% year on year, with organic growth of 10.1%
• Ordinary operating EBITDA of €120.8m, up 15.9%, at a margin of 60.9% (Q3 2025: 62.9%)
• Organic ordinary operating EBITDA margin of 63.3%, up 0.4 percentage points
• Professional revenue of €146.7m, up 23.3%
• Private revenue of €51.6m, up 10.5%
• Spain revenue of €15.8m, up from €15.5m in Q2
• Adjusted EPS of €1.09, up 21.5%, while earnings after tax fell 30% to €71.1m
• Full-year revenue growth guidance narrowed to around 18%

Commenting on his company's performance, Ralf Weitz, CEO of Scout24, said:

"Scout24 delivered a strong performance in the third quarter: our revenue grew by just under 20%, with organic growth once again in double figures. At the same time, we were once again able to achieve above-average growth in earnings: adjusted earnings per share rose by more than 20%."

At its Capital Markets Day in May, Scout24 laid out what it calls an "Agentic OS for real estate". The idea is to build AI agents on top of ImmoScout24's listings and data and the Propstack software that agents already use, then bill for them by usage through ImmoPoints, its own digital currency, on top of the flat membership fee. It also set targets for 2028: 700,000 private subscribers and an ordinary operating EBITDA margin of around 64%.

Proppi, an AI assistant inside Propstack that handles routine communication for agents, was rolled out in Q3. According to the release, more than 10,000 professional customers used ImmoPoints in September, over 40% more than a year earlier, and that AI and automation cut organic personnel costs again.

Fotocasa and Habitaclia cost around €155m when Scout24 bought them from EQT in February. Their ordinary operating EBITDA margin in Q3 was 34.2%, compared with 63.3% for the rest of the group. Scout24 says the Spanish figure still carries temporary transitional service costs from separating the business from its old infrastructure.

Martin Mildner, CFO of Scout24, said: "We have significantly improved the operating performance of our Spanish business, with sequential revenue growth and markedly higher profitability, underscoring our track record as a disciplined acquirer of complementary businesses."

That sequential growth was €0.3m as Spanish revenue went from €15.5m in Q2 to €15.8m with the company reporting 2.4% more professional customers in Spain than it had at the end of June.

Professional is the agent side of the business: estate agents pay for memberships that bundle listings with marketing, data, valuation and CRM tools. In Germany, subscription revenue rose 11.5% to €91.3m. Customer numbers grew 3.9% to an average of 24,945, quicker than in either of the first two quarters, but ARPU growth slowed to 7.4% from 10.4% in Q2. Scout24 blames quieter new-build developers, and says moving around 20,000 agents onto new membership packages gives it room to raise ARPU from 2027.

On the consumer side, the Private segment sells Plus subscriptions to people looking to rent or buy and to private landlords, and charges private sellers and landlords to list.

Subscriber growth has slowed sharply. It was 14.5% a year ago, and Scout24 passed the 500,000 target from its 2024 Capital Markets Day in Q1. In Q3 the number of subscribers grew 1.4%, to 534,003. Scout24 is making more from each one instead: ARPU rose 8.9% to €19.1 a month, with about 40% of subscribers now on the Pro and Unlimited tiers. Unlimited comes with an AI application assistant and, Scout24 says, four times as many viewing invitations.

That took Private revenue up 10.5% to €51.6m, its best quarter this year after 8.8% in Q1 and 8.4% in Q2. In September Scout24 also launched Rental Deposit Guarantee Plus with SV SparkassenVersicherung, letting renters pay an annual premium instead of a cash deposit, the first of several products it plans for tenants once they have found a flat. At 1.4% a year, the 700,000 subscriber target is still a long way off.

Traffic fell again on ImmoScout24's own figures. Monthly sessions were down 9.6% at 89.5m and website users down 1.4% at 15.1m, though the company points to more searches per visit. It also reports around 10 million AI-powered searches in the quarter, 26 times the level a year ago. Listings rose 19.7% to an average of 719,204, helped, the company says, by homes taking longer to sell.

The 30% drop in earnings after tax is down to a one-off deferred tax gain in Q3 2025, booked after Germany legislated a lower future corporate tax rate. Adjusted EPS rose 21.5% to €1.09, helped by €165m of buybacks in the quarter, more than three times what Scout24 spent in Q2. Between Spain and the buybacks, leverage has gone from 0.81 times ordinary operating EBITDA at the end of March to 1.36 times.

Guidance for 2026 is now revenue growth of around 18%, with 7 to 8 points of it from Spain. The margin target stays at up to 61%, which, with 60.4% in the bag after nine months, depends on a better fourth quarter. Scout24 expects one, as Q3's extra marketing spend and credit loss allowances drop out. Full-year results are due on 25 February 2027.