REA Group Ltd (ASX: REA) shares have long been a favourite amongst the ASX investing community, particularly for growth investors. REA's rise over the past few years has been nothing short of blistering, somewhat mirroring the property market that it helps facilitate.
The online property classifieds stock was going for under $100 a share just three-and-a-bit years ago, but hit a new record high of $276.64 earlier this year.
Since then, though, REA's share price growth has stalled, and rather dramatically too. At $196.71 today (at the time of writing), REA is now down 16.15% year to date in 2025, and down close to 30% from that all-time record.
It's thus fair to say that many ASX investors, and probably many REA shareholders, might be wondering what might come next for REA shares.
Fortunately for those investors, analysts at Macquarie have just taken a hard look at the most recent Australian residential listings volumes, and what they might mean for REA shares amid this recent share price slump. Let's discuss what they've found.
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Does Macquarie rate REA shares as a buy, hold or sell?
So Macquarie's analysts noted that Australian residential listing volumes fell 3% year-on-year in October 2025. That brings the falls over FY226 so far to 7%. Saying that, listings rose by 6% and 2% in Sydney and Melbourne over October, respectively, so it wasn't all bad news.
This has made Macquarie "cautious on REA, despite the earnings trajectory being intact".
Analysts note that recent share price underperformance is likely due to competition concerns now that CoStar has acquired REA's rival Domain. However, in their view, it remains "too early to make a definitive call on how those factors play out".
Macquarie still see plenty of growth ahead for REA, though. Analysts have predicted that "double-digit buy yield growth and positive operating jaws" should see REA enjoy "mid-teens EPS [earnings per share] growth" until at year the 2028 financial year.
Despite this, Macquarie has retained a 'neutral' rating on the REA Group share price. This rating does come with a 12-month share price target of $220, though. If realised, that would still see investors enjoy close to a 12% return from where the shares are today.
Let's see if Macquarie is on the money with this popular ASX 200 stock.
At the current share price, REA Group is trading on a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 38.4, with a dividend yield of 1.26%.
