St. Joe (NYSE:JOE – Get Free Report) and Fathom (NASDAQ:FTHM – Get Free Report) are both real estate companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations and dividends.
Risk and Volatility
St. Joe has a beta of 1.25, suggesting that its share price is 25% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Fathom has a beta of 2.41, suggesting that its share price is 141% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for St. Joe and Fathom, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| St. Joe | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3.00 |
| Fathom | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2.50 |
Fathom has a consensus price target of $2.50, indicating a potential upside of 1,288.89%. Given Fathom’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Fathom is more favorable than St. Joe.
Institutional & Insider Ownership
86.7% of St. Joe shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 55.5% of Fathom shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of St. Joe shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 16.4% of Fathom shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Valuation and Earnings
This table compares St. Joe and Fathom”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| St. Joe | $513.20 million | 7.75 | $115.63 million | $2.12 | 33.18 |
| Fathom | $420.48 million | 0.01 | -$20.31 million | ($0.80) | -0.22 |
St. Joe has higher revenue and earnings than Fathom. Fathom is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than St. Joe, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Profitability
This table compares St. Joe and Fathom’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| St. Joe | 22.32% | 15.66% | 8.02% |
| Fathom | -6.27% | -75.89% | -33.25% |
Summary
St. Joe beats Fathom on 11 of the 15 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 Fathom
Fathom Holdings Inc. provides a real estate services platform that integrates residential brokerage, mortgage, title, and insurance services in the United States. It operates through three segments: Real Estate Brokerage, Mortgage, and Technology. The Real Estate Brokerage segment provides real estate brokerage services. The Mortgage segment offers residential loan origination and underwriting services. The Technology segment provides Software as a Service solutions and data mining for third party customers. It offers access to various properties for sale or lease through its FathomRealty.com website to buyers, sellers, landlords, and tenants; insurance agency services; and title services. In addition, the company provides intelliAgent, a real estate technology platform that offers a suite of brokerage and agent level tools, technology, business processes, business intelligence and reporting, and training; transaction, personnel, customer relationship, and accounting management for agent transactions; and reporting, social media marketing, and other marketing and marketing repository services, as well as marketplace for add-on services and third-party technology. Its brands include Fathom Realty, Dagley Insurance, Encompass Lending, intelliAgent, LiveBy, Real Results, Verus Title, and Cornerstone. The company was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Cary, North Carolina.
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