Head-To-Head Contrast: St. Joe (NYSE:JOE) versus FirstService (NASDAQ:FSV)

St. Joe (NYSE:JOE) and FirstService (NASDAQ:FSV) are both mid-cap real estate companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, profitability and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for St. Joe and FirstService, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
St. Joe	0	0	1	0	3.00
FirstService	0	3	8	0	2.73

FirstService has a consensus target price of $183.70, suggesting a potential upside of 26.68%. Given FirstService’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe FirstService is more favorable than St. Joe.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

86.7% of St. Joe shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 69.3% of FirstService shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of St. Joe shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility & Risk

St. Joe has a beta of 1.28, suggesting that its stock price is 28% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, FirstService has a beta of 0.95, suggesting that its stock price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares St. Joe and FirstService”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
St. Joe	$547.84 million	7.21	$115.63 million	$2.14	32.42
FirstService	$5.50 billion	1.15	$145.05 million	$3.53	41.08

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

Dividends

St. Joe pays an annual dividend of $0.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. FirstService pays an annual dividend of $1.22 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. St. Joe pays out 29.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. FirstService pays out 34.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. St. Joe has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years and FirstService has raised its dividend for 7 consecutive years. St. Joe is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Profitability

This table compares St. Joe and FirstService’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
St. Joe	22.45%	15.90%	8.09%
FirstService	2.88%	18.07%	5.59%

Summary

St. Joe beats FirstService on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About St. Joe

The St. Joe Company, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a real estate development, asset management, and operating company in Northwest Florida. It operates through three segments: Residential, Hospitality, and Commercial. The Residential segment engages in the development of communities into homesites for sale to homebuilders and on a limited basis to retail customers. This segment primarily sells developed homesites, completed homes, parcels of entitled or undeveloped land or homesites, and a homesite residual on homebuilder, as well as offers title insurance and marketing services. The Hospitality segment owns and operates a private membership club, golf courses, beach clubs, retail outlets, marinas, and other entertainment assets. This segment also engages in the hotel, food and beverage, and gulf-front vacation rental operations, as well as provides management services. The Commercial segment engages in leasing of commercial property, multi-family, a senior living community, and other assets. This segment is also involved in the planning, development, entitlement, management, and sale of commercial and rural land holdings for retail, office, hotel, senior living, multi-family, self-storage, and industrial uses; and grows and sells pulpwood, sawtimber, and other forest products. The company was incorporated in 1936 and is based in Panama City Beach, Florida.

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.