By Stuart Condie

SYDNEY--Australian real-estate advertiser REA Group lifted its dividend and announced a US$140 million share buyback after first-half profit rose 9%.

The ASX-listed classifieds provider on Friday reported a core-operations net profit for the six months through December of 340.6 million Australian dollars, equivalent to about US$238.4 million.

Revenue rose by 5% to A$915.8 million even as Australian residential buy ad volumes fell 6%. Yield rose 14% on price rises, growth in add-on products, increased depth, and geographical factors.

The profit was lower than the average analyst forecast of A$349.1 million off revenue of A$933.9 million, according to data compiled by Visible Alpha.

News Corp-controlled REA raised its interim dividend to A$1.24 a share from A$1.10 a year ago. It said it would launch an on-market A$200 million share buyback on or after Feb. 23.

"REA Group has an extremely strong balance sheet, and this share buyback reflects the board's confidence in the long-term outlook of the business and our disciplined approach to capital management," REA Chairman Hamish McLennan said.

Including one-off items such as the gain made from the sale of its stake in PropertyGuru in the year-earlier period, statutory net profit fell to A$336.3 million from A$441.3 million.

News Corp is the parent company of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.

REA said the decline in Australian volumes was a reflection of strong growth a year earlier, when listings were up by 5%. At that time, consumers were anticipating interest-rate cuts by Australia's central bank.

The Reserve Bank of Australia cut the cash rate three times in 2025. It raised the rate this week, but REA said that buyer demand remained strong across Australia.

The average price for an Australian dwelling rose 8.6% in 2025, according to real-estate analytics provider Cotality. That was the highest annual rise since 2021, but growth slowed toward the end of the year and the average price rose by just 0.8% over January.

REA said that volumes in January, the first month of its fiscal second half, were down 8% from a year earlier. However, it said that activity was strong in the key Sydney and Melbourne markets and that volumes would likely fall by between 1% and 3% over the full fiscal year.

It expects full-year residential buy yield growth of between 12% and 14%, and for its annual income to grow at a faster pace than costs, which it sees rising by a percentage in the mid single digits.

Write to Stuart Condie at stuart.condie@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 05, 2026 17:11 ET (22:11 GMT)

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