Financial Survey: FirstService (NASDAQ:FSV) and Douglas Elliman (NYSE:DOUG)

FirstService (NASDAQ:FSV) and Douglas Elliman (NYSE:DOUG) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, earnings, institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for FirstService and Douglas Elliman, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
FirstService	0	2	2	0	2.50
Douglas Elliman	0	0	0	0	0.00

FirstService currently has a consensus price target of $217.75, indicating a potential upside of 8.02%. Given FirstService’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe FirstService is more favorable than Douglas Elliman.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

69.4% of FirstService shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 59.6% of Douglas Elliman shares are held by institutional investors. 6.8% of Douglas Elliman shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares FirstService and Douglas Elliman’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
FirstService	2.61%	18.24%	5.17%
Douglas Elliman	-5.98%	-7.11%	-2.27%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares FirstService and Douglas Elliman”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
FirstService	$5.22 billion	1.76	$134.38 million	$3.12	64.61
Douglas Elliman	$995.63 million	0.26	-$76.32 million	($0.74)	-3.91

FirstService has higher revenue and earnings than Douglas Elliman. Douglas Elliman is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than FirstService, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

FirstService has a beta of 0.96, indicating that its stock price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Douglas Elliman has a beta of 1.77, indicating that its stock price is 77% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

FirstService beats Douglas Elliman on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About FirstService

FirstService Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides residential property management and other essential property services to residential and commercial customers in the United States and Canada. It operates through two segments: FirstService Residential and FirstService Brands. The FirstService Residential segment offers services for private residential communities, such as condominiums, co-operatives, homeowner associations, master-planned communities, active adult and lifestyle communities, and various other residential developments. This segment provides a range of ancillary services, including on-site staffing for building engineering and maintenance, full-service amenity management, and security and concierge/front desk; and financial services comprising cash management, other banking transaction-related, and specialized property insurance brokerage. In addition, this segment offers energy management solutions and advisory services, and resale processing services. Its FirstService Brands segment operates and provides essential property services to residential and commercial customers through franchise networks; and company-owned operations, including California Closets, Paul Davis Restoration, and CertaPro Painters operations. It provides residential and commercial restoration, painting, and floor coverings design and installation services; custom-designed and installed closet, and home storage solutions; home inspection services; and fire protection and related services. This segment offers its services primarily under the Paul Davis Restoration, Roofing Corp of America, First Onsite property Restoration, Century Fire Protection, CertaPro Painters, California Closets, Pillar to Post Home Inspectors, and Floor Coverings International brand names. FirstService Corporation was incorporated in 1988 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

About Douglas Elliman

Douglas Elliman Inc. owns Douglas Elliman Realty, LLC, operating as a residential brokerage company in the United States with operations in New York, Florida, California, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. In addition, Douglas Elliman sources, uses and invests in early-stage, disruptive property technology (“PropTech”) solutions and companies and provides other real estate services, including development marketing, property management and settlement and escrow services in select markets.