Investing in stocks inevitably means buying into some companies that perform poorly. But the last three years have been particularly tough on longer term Anywhere Real Estate Inc. (NYSE:HOUS) shareholders. Unfortunately, they have held through a 65% decline in the share price in that time. Furthermore, it's down 32% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders.

Since Anywhere Real Estate has shed US$96m from its value in the past 7 days, let's see if the longer term decline has been driven by the business' economics.

Anywhere Real Estate wasn't profitable in the last twelve months, it is unlikely we'll see a strong correlation between its share price and its earnings per share (EPS). Arguably revenue is our next best option. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect to see good revenue growth. That's because it's hard to be confident a company will be sustainable if revenue growth is negligible, and it never makes a profit.

Over the last three years, Anywhere Real Estate's revenue dropped 6.9% per year. That is not a good result. The share price decline of 18% compound, over three years, is understandable given the company doesn't have profits to boast of, and revenue is moving in the wrong direction. Of course, it's the future that will determine whether today's price is a good one. We'd be pretty wary of this one until it makes a profit, because we don't specialize in finding turnaround situations.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. You can see what analysts are predicting for Anywhere Real Estate in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

A Different Perspective

Anywhere Real Estate shareholders are up 0.8% for the year. But that was short of the market average. But at least that's still a gain! Over five years the TSR has been a reduction of 9% per year, over five years. So this might be a sign the business has turned its fortunes around. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Anywhere Real Estate better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 1 warning sign for Anywhere Real Estate you should be aware of.

If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on American exchanges.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.