Century Communities, Inc. (CCS) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Greetings. Welcome to the Century Communities Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Please note, this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Tyler Langton, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for Century Communities. Thank you. You may begin.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today for Century Communities Earnings Conference Call for the Second Quarter 2026. Before the call begins, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described or implied in the forward-looking statements. Certain of these risks and uncertainties can be found under the heading Risk Factors in the company's latest 10-K as supplemented by our latest 10-Q to be filed shortly and other SEC filings. We undertake no duty to update our forward-looking statements. Additionally, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed on this conference call. Reconciliations of all non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the earnings release furnished to the SEC and posted on our Investor Relations website. The company's presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Hosting the call today are Dale Francescon, Executive Chairman; Rob Francescon, Chief Executive Officer; and Scott Dixon, Chief Financial Officer. Following today's prepared remarks, we will open up the line for questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dale.

Thank you, Tyler and good afternoon, everyone. We delivered strong second quarter results despite continued headwinds from macro challenges and weak consumer sentiment, with earnings per diluted share of $1.26, increasing by 11% on a year-over-year basis and 50% sequentially. Our deliveries of 2,506 homes exceeded our guidance of 2,200 to 2,400 on a stronger absorption rate, which increased by 6% on a quarter-over-quarter basis compared to a historic average second quarter decline of 7% over the previous 5 years. We coupled this improvement in our sales pace with effective management of our incentives and costs. Our adjusted gross margin of 20% increased by 30 basis points on a sequential basis, benefiting from lower incentives and direct costs. We also continued to successfully control our fixed general and administrative costs, while our financial services business generated strong results. As a result, we grew our book value per share to a company record of $90.24. We ended the quarter with a company record 330 open communities and expect our average community count in 2026 to increase in the low to mid-single-digit percentage range on a year-over-year basis. Our land acquisition and development spend continues to be supportive of the increased scale and allow for a 10% annual delivery growth over the next several year period once market conditions improve. During the second quarter, we continued our balanced approach to capital allocation and repurchased 1% of our shares outstanding at a 38% discount to book value, bringing our year-to-date acquisition total to 3% at a 32% discount to book value. We are pleased by our second quarter results as we navigate market headwinds and position Century for the years ahead. I'll now turn the call over to Rob to discuss our strategy, operations and land positions in more detail.

Thank you, Dale and good afternoon, everyone. We were encouraged by our order activity in the quarter, especially as the strength in our sales was accompanied by a continued decline in incentives. Our net orders of 2,615 homes increased 3% year-over-year and 10% sequentially, with the majority of this increase being driven by improved absorption rates. Our order activity was also very consistent throughout the quarter with June orders roughly in line with both May and April. Our average community count was 321 communities in the second quarter and we ended the quarter with 330 communities, up 4% on a sequential basis and a record for the company. I would also like to point out that the net growth in our community count this quarter came in June, with our community count in April and May, roughly in line with our first quarter ending community count of 316. As a result, our orders in the second quarter did not see a significant benefit from the growth in our quarter end community count. Our traffic in the second quarter was roughly 9% higher than first quarter levels, while our traffic in June was 18% higher than April levels, demonstrating the solid demand and interest for new homes. Our cancellation rate of 13.2% in the second quarter decreased on a year-over-year basis, demonstrating the commitment of buyers once they have made the decision to purchase a new home. Order activity so far in July has been in line with typical seasonality. We delivered 2,506 homes during the second quarter, a 25% sequential increase and our incentives on these homes averaged 1,200 basis points, down approximately 50 basis points from first quarter 2026 levels and 100 basis points from fourth quarter 2025 levels. Similar to our order activity, our incentives on closed homes were also relatively consistent throughout the second quarter. Assuming current market conditions, we expect incentives on closed homes in the third quarter of 2026 to be consistent with levels experienced in the first half of this year. In the second quarter, adjustable rate mortgages accounted for nearly 35% of the mortgages that we originated by volume of principal, a further increase from first quarter 2026 levels of approximately 30% and well above first quarter 2025 levels of less than 5%. Receptivity of our buyers to ARMs has been increasing and this increased adoption of ARMs could help partially address the market's affordability challenges. While incentives remain a headwind to margins, our operations continued to perform extremely well in the second quarter. Our direct construction costs on the homes we delivered declined by 5% on a sequential basis. Our cycle times averaged 112 calendar days, down on both a year-over-year and sequential basis and a company record. Our finished lot costs in the second quarter were flat on a sequential basis. And we continue to expect our average finished lot costs for 2026 to only be 2% to 3% higher than fourth quarter 2025 levels. In the second quarter, we started 2,841 homes and remain focused on managing our inventory levels, ending the quarter with approximately 3 finished specs per community. We ended the second quarter with just over 60,000 owned and controlled lots with on a sequential basis, our owned lots, down 2% but our total lot count up 3% as we continue to proactively manage our land position. In 2026, we continue to expect our land acquisition and development expense to be in the range of $1 billion to $1.2 billion. We have the ability to accelerate this number if market conditions improve, given the strength of our balance sheet or to reduce it if marketing conditions warrant without impacting our near-term growth prospects. We are optimistic about our results in the second quarter. We saw a healthy pickup in our activity accompanied by a decline in incentives and continued ability to control our costs and inventory levels. I'll now turn the call over to Scott to discuss our financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Rob. In the second quarter, pretax income was $49 million and net income was $36 million or $1.26 per diluted share, a 50% sequential increase. Home sales revenues for the second quarter were $898 million with an average sales price of $358,000. Our deliveries of 2,506 homes increased 25% on a quarter-over-quarter basis compared to an average sequential increase of 11% over the previous 5 years and benefited from the strength in our order activity this quarter. For the third quarter 2026, we expect our deliveries to range from 2,500 to 2,700 homes with a further sequential increase in the fourth quarter. Our second quarter 2026 GAAP homebuilding gross margin of 18.1% and adjusted gross margin of 20%, both increased by 30 basis points over first quarter 2026 levels. However, I would like to remind everyone that our first quarter gross margin and adjusted gross margin benefited by 90 basis points from a reduction to our warranty accrual and rebate collections in excess of previous estimates, while there was no impact from those 2 items in the second quarter. As a result, if we were to exclude this 90 basis point benefit from the first quarter, our second quarter gross margin would have increased by 120 basis points on a sequential basis, with the improvement driven by lower incentives and direct construction costs. For the third quarter 2026, we expect the most significant driver of our adjusted homebuilding gross margin to continue to be incentives needed to generate an acceptable sales pace, which, as Rob noted earlier, we currently expect to be consistent with levels experienced in the first half of this year. SG&A as a percent of home sales revenues was 14.2% in the second quarter. While lower home sales revenue and higher commissions and advertising expense continue to pressure this percentage, we are effectively managing our fixed costs with our SG&A, excluding commissions and advertising down slightly on a year-over-year basis. Assuming the midpoint of our full year 2026 home sales revenue guidance, we expect our SG&A as a percent of home sales revenue to be roughly 14% for the full year 2026, with SG&A as a percentage of home sales revenue of 13.5% for the third quarter. Revenues from financial services were $25 million in the second quarter and the business generated pretax income of $10 million. This segment benefited from both lower cost and a positive fair value adjustment. Excluding the impact of any fair value adjustments, we expect the contribution margin percent from financial services in the second half of this year to be closer to full year 2025 levels. Our tax rate was 26.3% in the second quarter 2026 and we expect our full year tax rate for 2026 to be in the range of 26% to 27%. Our second quarter 2026 net homebuilding debt to net capital ratio was 31.9% and our homebuilding debt-to-capital ratio was 34.2%, basically consistent with the prior year quarter. We ended the quarter with $2.6 billion in stockholders' equity and $802 million of liquidity. During the quarter, we maintained our quarterly cash dividend of $0.32 per share and repurchased 353,000 shares of our common stock for $20 million at an average share price of $55.54, or a 38% discount to our book value per share of $9.24 as of the end of the second quarter. Through the first 6 months of the year, we have repurchased 970,000 shares of our common stock for $60 million or over 3% of our shares outstanding at the beginning of the year at an average share price of $61.44 or a 32% discount to our second quarter ending book value. Turning to guidance. We are raising the midpoint and low end of our full year 2026 home delivery guidance and now expect our deliveries to range from 9,750 to 10,500 homes and our home sales revenues to be in the range of $3.5 billion to $3.8 billion. In closing, we are pleased with our performance in the current environment. We are effectively balancing pace and price and controlling our costs and inventory levels. We have bought back over 3% of our shares outstanding to date at a significant discount to book value, while continuing to position Century for future growth. With that, I'll open the line for questions. Operator?

Your first question comes from the line of Alex Rygiel with Texas Capital.

Very nice performance there on the gross margin of 20% in the quarter. And clearly, your guidance would suggest that you should be able to hold that in the back half of the year. Can you talk about some of the variables that we should be looking for that might offer you opportunity to drive that margin a little bit higher even in a flattish environment that we've got here?

Yes. Sure, Alex and good to talk to you. So I think generally speaking, from where we sit right now, a lot of the same drivers on the margin line that we've been experiencing over the last couple of quarters continue. So the biggest driver is going to be incentives. We're very pleased with our ability here during the second quarter to pull back on incentives. A lot of that's been driven by our continued introduction of ARM product. So going forward, I think incentives is going to be -- is going to continue to be the largest driver of our margin profile. We've done a good job holding the line on direct cost of construction and in lots of cases, getting direct cost of construction out. There's certainly a variable there given the macro that's a little bit difficult to predict how it's going to evolve over the back half of the year. So those are really the 2 main drivers from our perspective. We feel good about where our finished lot cost is currently and where it's projected to be in the back half of the year.

And then I did notice that the number of selling communities in Texas actually picked up kind of notably here. Can you talk a bit more about sort of that market and the health of that market today?

Yes. So overall, Texas, we feel very good about. We feel like it's starting to come back from maybe the low that it was. It's starting to pick up a little bit. The open community counts, this is a reflection of our investment in the market as this has come to fruition with actually opening for sales and getting these communities started. When we look at it, we've got a very dominant position in Houston and we feel good about that market. We are really catering to the more entry-level first-time homebuyer in that market. And it's incentive-driven but it's actually doing quite well. San Antonio is another bright spot for us where operationally, that has actually been running better than we have in the last several years. It's actually done very well. Austin seems to be picking up. And then Dallas, our operation in Dallas, we are really just getting going. We're not to scale yet there. There's a lot of VDLs on the ground there. And so we're hopeful for a bigger operation there. But overall, we like the Texas market, as you can see by our investment and we're -- we believe it's a bright future in Texas.

Your next question comes from the line of Natalie Kulasekere with Zelman Associates.

Congrats on a good quarter. Just 1 for me. I -- we saw some reductions in direct construction costs this quarter. But have you also started seeing pressure from vendors about any potential price increases because of fuel costs and even commodity price increases like lumber? Could you maybe provide more detail about what you're seeing on this front and how you think it will impact margins going forward?

Sure. So one, we're very pleased with the 5% reduction in directs on a quarter-over-quarter basis. And that's based on an initiative that we started company-wide with our team members at the end of last year, beginning of this year that started to roll through the closings in Q2. So again, we feel very positive about where that's going. In terms of where we are today in the market, of course, like all the builders, with oil prices up, we're getting on the land development front for diesel or asphalt, other things, we're getting some, what I would call requests. We are pushing back on those requests at this point in time but that is potential to have increases on land development on a go-forward basis, although we're trying to mute that. And so far, we've been able to do it. On the lumber front, where we've experienced what I would call, tailwinds, that's probably ended. And so we're basically flat to up right now. Again, on a percentage basis, it's not a meaningful number but we're watching it very closely.

Your next question comes from Jay McCanless with Citizens.

Could you guys talk through again where the incentives are? I think you said 1,200 basis points for orders this quarter and that was down 50 basis points sequentially. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay. And then I was going to ask also, where is your sold and closed percentage now? Is it still running pretty high? Or are you trying to bring that down a little bit?

We're still running pretty consistently where we have been in terms of sold units intra-quarter. quarter. That's generally been pretty consistent for us, Jay, over the last, I call it, 4 to 6 quarters. Generally, we are selling and closing somewhere around 50% to 60% of our units intra-quarter.

Okay. And then the next one I had, do you -- with all the M&A going on in the industry right now, is this opening up some opportunities? You talked about VDLs in Dallas. But are there some other opportunities that are opening up to maybe get some land, expand inside some of the geographies where you've already put a flag?

Jay, it's consistent with how we've always looked at M&A. We always look at transactions. And as I think you know, we have a solid track record in M&A. We've completed 9 acquisitions since 2013. The team has done, every one of them, a great job on integration. And we will pursue M&A when it makes sense for our platform. So we're -- nothing's changed on that front. We're continuing to look at M&A in the marketplace.

Great. And then the other thing I did want to ask is the last one on the marketplace. I guess what are you seeing, especially on entry level from competitive supply? One of your larger competitors this week talked about maybe slowing down the pace of starts to realize a little more gross margin. And just wondering if you all are seeing that in the field, not only from some of the larger competitors but maybe some of the midsized companies as well.

Yes. As a general statement and this is our perspective, inventory levels are in normal ranges right now. They're not out of balance in our opinion. I think people are pretty judicious on how they're looking at starts and all. Regarding entry level, lot of that's market by market, Jay. We've taken a closer pace versus price balance, as you can see by how our margins changed. But it's still -- we're not seeing some of the crazy discounting that was happening even last year, early this year. And so I think that's moderated a little bit. We'll see as -- there hasn't been that many builders come out yet on earnings but it seems like the incentives hopefully have kind of bottomed and we'll see where this goes. And all that's based on though, of course, where interest rates and a variety of other things go from a macroeconomic standpoint. But we have not seen any anything unusual recently.

The 1 thing I would add real quick on that is, we -- and we mentioned it in our prepared remarks, we have been really focused on managing our QMI inventory. We were at 3, slightly below 3 per community at the end of June. We like that amount. That allows us to really serve that buyer. So from our perspective, we feel really in a good shape with where our inventory is in our specific communities and markets.

Your next question comes from the line of Rohit Seth with B. Riley Securities.

Just with the rise in rates over the last little while, just wondering how the traffic response has been in July.

Yes, Rohit, great question. Little bit -- a little bit difficult for us to discern too much from July. July historically is one of our slower months of the year along with January. It builds each week, which we certainly have seen it do so far. But coming off of the July 4 holiday, July typically is a little bit more muted from a pace perspective. It's following so far, very seasonal trends as to what we've seen in previous July. So a little bit too early to tell the recent rate increases in terms of how the consumer has responded directly to that.

All right. And then the ARM trends, you reached 35% now. Do you see some headroom there to continue to push that higher?

We think we can push it higher. And when you look at it on a year-over-year growth basis, it's actually gone up quite a bit. So we went from 5% now sequentially quarter-over-quarter 30% to 35% and we think we can push that. And that's candidly an affordable option, especially for the duration a lot of the people would stay in their homes. It makes a lot of sense.

All right. Okay. And then just on the community count cadence you mentioned 330 communities but the growth rate on a annual basis is at low to mid. And so maybe you can talk through the cadence of how you see the back half playing out.

Yes, Rohit, great question. So from the mid- to -- low -- sorry, the mid-digit increase that we had in our prepared remarks, that's an average year-over-year number as opposed to an ending for where we think we will average throughout the entire year. We do think we have the ability to increase community count above the 330 as we move sequentially throughout the back half of the year. But from an average perspective, we do believe we'll be up about mid-single digits over last year's average community count.

Your next question comes from the line of Jay McCanless with Citizens.

I wanted to ask, in the Mountain, it looks like closings were up year-on-year, probably the first time in a few quarters. Since that Charles home market, could you maybe talk a little bit about what you're seeing there and what the competitive set is looking like in that segment?

Yes. So in the Mountain region, when we look at Las Vegas, that's actually been a really strong division for the company and that's holding up really well. There's been a lot of demand out of that. When we look at Colorado, where our home base is, it's still a challenging market. It's heavily incentivized. And you look at the price points in Colorado, for a non-coastal market, it's very expensive. So that has not really recovered as much. Phoenix, we're getting some good traction in that and also in Utah. And we really like the Utah market. We like a lot of things about it as well as the potential future growth within that market. And so that's actually been performing above our expectations.

There are no further questions at this time. We will now turn the call back to Rob for brief closing remarks.

Thank you. To everyone on the call, thank you for your time today and interest in Century Communities. To our team members, thank you for your hard work, dedication to Century and commitment to our valued homebuyers.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.