Head-To-Head Survey: Nationstar Mortgage Holdings (NSM) versus Trulia (NYSE:TRLA)

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings (NYSE: NSM) and Trulia (NYSE:TRLA) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, risk and earnings.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Trulia’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	EBITDA	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nationstar Mortgage Holdings	$1.42 billion	1.18	$223.85 million	$2.29	7.47
Trulia	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings has higher revenue and earnings than Trulia.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

98.4% of Nationstar Mortgage Holdings shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.8% of Nationstar Mortgage Holdings shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Trulia, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nationstar Mortgage Holdings	2	3	5	0	2.30
Trulia	0	0	0	0	N/A

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings presently has a consensus target price of $18.33, suggesting a potential upside of 7.21%. Given Nationstar Mortgage Holdings’ higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Nationstar Mortgage Holdings is more favorable than Trulia.

Profitability

This table compares Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Trulia’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nationstar Mortgage Holdings	10.52%	9.64%	0.87%
Trulia	-35.73%	-26.12%	-14.78%

Summary

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings beats Trulia on 8 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Company Profile

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc. provides servicing, origination and transaction based services principally to single-family residences throughout the United States. The Company operates through three segments: Servicing, Originations and Xome. The Company provides residential loan services in the United States. The Company also operates an integrated residential loan origination platform that is primarily focused on customer retention. Its Xome subsidiary offers an array of complementary services related to the purchase and disposition of residential real estate. It provides non-bank services and residential mortgage services in the United States conducting operations through its Nationstar Mortgage and Champion Mortgage brands. It originates and purchases conventional mortgage loans conforming to the underwriting standards of the government sponsored entities, which it collectively refers to as Agency loans. The Xome segment is a provider of technology and data-enhanced solutions.

Trulia Company Profile

Trulia, Inc. is a real estate search engine company. The Company’s marketplace, delivered through the web and mobile applications, gives consumers tools to research homes and neighborhoods and enables real estate professionals to market their listings and attract new clients. The Company also offers a suite of free and subscription products that provide real estate professionals with access to transaction-ready consumers and help them to grow and manage their online presence. For the year ended December 31, 2013, the Company had 38.8 million monthly unique visitors. As at December 31, 2013, the Company had more than 437,000 active real estate professionals in its Trulia marketplace and 157,000 active real estate professionals using its Market Leader software and services. Approximately 59,700 of these real estate professionals were paying subscribers (assuming 20% overlap between Trulia subscribers and Marker Leader’s premium subscribers).