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Transcript
OP
Operator
Operator
Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for Hovnanian Enterprises' Fiscal 2011 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Management will make some opening remarks about the first quarter results and then open up the line for questions. The company will also be webcasting a slide presentation along with the opening comments from management. The slides are available on the Investors Page of the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in the press release also applies to any comments made during this conference call and to the information in the slide presentation. I will now like to turn the conference call over Ara Hovananian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hovnanian Enterprises. Ara, please go ahead.
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in the press release also applies to any comments made during this conference call and to the information in the slide presentation. I will now like to turn the conference call over Ara Hovananian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hovnanian Enterprises. Ara, please go ahead
Thank you and good morning. Thanks for participating in today's call to review the results of our first quarter ended January of 2011. Joining me today from the company are Larry Sorsby, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Paul Buchanan, Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer; Brad O'Connor, Vice President and Corporate Controller; David Valiaveedan, Vice President of Finance and Treasurer; and Jeff O'Keefe, Vice President, Investor Relations. On Slide 3, you can see brief summary of our first quarter results. While our results are generally in line with our expectations and analysts' consensus projections, as we have said in the past there's still a lot of room for improvement. Slide 4 shows monthly net contracts per community. You can see that we experienced a seasonal shift, fall off in sales during November and December. This was followed by a typical seasonal rebound both in traffic and sales during January and February. However, even with the pickup in sales in January and February the sales pace per community is slightly below levels of a year ago, when the homebuyer’s tax credit was available. While we would have hoped for even stronger results in February, based on early sales and traffic results, we are feeling good about the spring selling season coming up. On Slide 5, you can see what contracts per community look like on an annual basis. The key takeaway from the slide is that even though the pace per community is not improving, the free fall that we experienced from 2004 to 2008 has stabilized during the past two years at 23 net contracts per community. There's a lot of upside from these low levels before we get back to more normalized levels like what we saw from 1997 to 2002, a period that was neither…
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in the press release also applies to any comments made during this conference call and to the information in the slide presentation. I will now like to turn the conference call over Ara Hovananian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hovnanian Enterprises. Ara, please go ahead
Thanks, Ara. Let me start with the discussion of our current inventory from a couple of different perspectives. Turning to Slide 11, you'll see our owned and optioned land position broken out by our publicly reported segments. Based on trailing twelve-month deliveries, we own 4.2 years worth of land. Our owned lot position increased sequentially in the first quarter while our optioned lot position decreased. During the first quarter, we walked away from 2,600 lots, of which 1,700 were in just two communities. One with a 900 lot newly identified community that didn't make it past the initial due diligence period. And the other was an 800 lot legacy community that no longer met our performance hurdles. We purchased approximately 1,300 lots during the first quarter, which was offset by about 850 deliveries and the sale of about 200 lots. On the option side of the equation, we walked away from 2,600 optioned lots. Additionally, we signed new option contracts for an additional 1,600 lots during the quarter. At the end of the first quarter, 66% of our option lots are newly identified lots, and 21% of our owned lots were newly identified lots. When you combine our optioned and owned land, 39% of the total lots that we control today are newly identified lots. On Slide 12, we show a breakdown of the 18,711 lots we owned at the end of the first quarter. Approximately 38% of these were 80% or more finished, 12% had 30% to 80% of the improvements are already in place and the remaining 50% have less than 30% of the improvement dollars spent. While our primary focus is on purchasing improved lots, it is difficult to find finished lots for sale today at a reasonable price. About 35% of the remaining newly identified lots…
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in the press release also applies to any comments made during this conference call and to the information in the slide presentation. I will now like to turn the conference call over Ara Hovananian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hovnanian Enterprises. Ara, please go ahead
Well, needless to say, we are anxious to return to profitability. On Slide 23, we've developed some simplistic potential scenarios to illustrate what it would take for us to achieve break-even results. On the top of the slide, we assumed that our SG&A spending continues at levels similar to the first quarter of 2011. This would be an annual expense of about $220 million per year. While we include internal commissions and outside brokerage costs in cost of goods sold, which impacts our gross margin and not our selling costs, other general selling costs could increase with a higher volume, depending on things such as sales per community, advertising expenditures, number of communities, et cetera. However, for this simplistic analysis, we assumed that SG&A is flat at our most recent quarterly rate. We also noted our cash interest incurred of $155 million per year creating a total fixed cost in this simplistic scenario of $375 million per year. The middle of the slide shows the revenues and deliveries necessary at different gross margins to achieve break-even results assuming the above fixed costs. So if our gross margin stayed at 17%, we’d need revenues of $2.2 billion with 7,353 deliveries assuming our current average price of $300,000. If margins were more normalized at 20% levels, we'd need revenues of $1.875 billion or about 6,250 deliveries. Finally at the bottom of this slide, we showed the number of required communities based on different levels of deliveries per year per community. In this oversimplified model, if deliveries stayed at 23 per year with our current 17% gross margin, we’d need approximately 320 deliveries. If annual deliveries increased to 33 per community, still below our non-boom, normal times of 44, but increasing from our approximately two sales per month to 2.75 sales per month,…
OP
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from the line of David Goldberg from UBS.
SU
Susan Maklari - UBS
Analyst · UBS
This is actually Susan for David. Just wanted to get some more details in terms of the current order trends and what your thoughts are heading into the spring selling season. You did about one order per community in the last quarter per month. What do you think would be a good selling season, what do you -- do you have any kind of targets that you can talk to us about and sort of where you are relative to that?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · UBS
I think if you can turn to Slide 4, it kind of puts it into basic perspective. Both what the current trend has been, which has been an upward direction since the trough in December of 2010, when we were at 1.2, we went to 1.8 in January '11 and then 1.9 in February '11. And you can see how that compares to last February and January as an indication when the sales -- or the homebuyer tax credit was in place, you can see that last year, we had a very similar increase from January to February of 0.1 net contracts per community identical to this year's 0.1 increase but we are below the absolute level when the homebuyer tax credit was in place. You can also see on this slide what happened in March and April of last year as well. So that just gives you some idea of what we're kind of looking to achieve going forward. Obviously, this is still nowhere near normalized spring selling seasons before this unprecedented downturn. But the trend's in the right direction and as Ara said, we're feeling good. We always would like to see more sales but we're feeling good.
SU
Susan Maklari - UBS
Analyst · UBS
Okay. And are you seeing, generally speaking, a lot of pricing discipline out there? And what are your thoughts about potentially having to increase incentives or lower prices or something along those lines in order to drive greater traffic, if you need to do that?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · UBS
I'd say we saw pricing pressure, November and December, it was a slow time of the period -- of the selling season always, but there was definitely more pricing pressure. More recently, things definitely feel a little more stable in terms of pricing as well as velocity.
OP
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Dan Oppenheim from Crédit Suisse.
MD
Michael Dahl
Analyst
Hi, this is actually Mike Dahl on for Dan. Just a question on some of the comments you had on the more recent land purchases. You mentioned that some of the 2009 purchases aren't meeting hurdle rates anymore, but we've only see one of those communities impaired. I guess, why aren't we seeing more impairments on these communities? What should we expect going forward? And then presumably 2010, the land prices were generally increasing, so is it fair to say that the 2010 purchases are also not meeting hurdles?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in the press release also applies to any comments made during this conference call and to the information in the slide presentation. I will now like to turn the conference call over Ara Hovananian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hovnanian Enterprises. Ara, please go ahead
Yes. First of all, while there has been deterioration, we haven't had enough deterioration to bring the overwhelming majority of our new purchases into a position of having to impair. That being said, there certainly has been pressure on pricing, as I've mentioned and we've mentioned on previous phone calls. And some of the -- it's been choppy I'd say. We certainly have many communities that are meeting or exceeding the hurdle rates, but we certainly have some that were purchased, particularly the ones earlier in '09, that are not achieving our hurdle rates. Nonetheless, they're performing at a rate that it’s -- that they don't require any impairment other than the small one that we discussed this quarter.
MD
Michael Dahl
Analyst
Got it. So, I mean, in terms of the -- if we think about the margins there, if you were underwriting to a 20% margin, I mean, what's the level that we're at on some of those, is it 15%, is it 18%?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in the press release also applies to any comments made during this conference call and to the information in the slide presentation. I will now like to turn the conference call over Ara Hovananian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hovnanian Enterprises. Ara, please go ahead
I mean, on some of them we're above the 20%, we're above underwriting. On some we're below. There was only one that had deterioration either in or a combination of pace and/or price that caused a -- of an impairment. But these are all very fact-specific situations to a specific community. So I wouldn't take any broad-based conclusion that because we had one community that took an impairment, and we stated that there are some that we've gotten below the hurdle rate, that it’s the majority or anything close to the majority of what we've done. And also much of what we've controlled in 2010 we did in the last half of the year of 2010, the vast majority of our 2010 was in the last half of 2010 after the market had already slowed down so that we were able to take that into account in our underwriting criteria. So we're pleased at this point, given market conditions with the deals that we have done, and hopefully the market will stabilize or even improve from here. And we'll ultimately get even better returns on the properties that we’ve controlled since the end of January 2009.
MD
Michael Dahl
Analyst
Okay. That makes sense.
OP
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Rehaut from JPMorgan.
Michael Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co: First question on the orders from new communities. I think you said that at this point in terms of your total communities open, 60% are new or newly purchased since '09, but what is the amount of percentage of orders that you're taking in as a percent of total from new and how does that compare to the last couple of quarters?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · quarters
I don't think we have that detail at our fingertips, certainly don’t have it tracked that way. What we can say is that many of the communities that are newly identified that are now open for sale have recently opened for sale. And as Ara mentioned, some of them are kind of in pre-sale mode without models being completed yet. And therefore, the deliveries are going to be waited to the latter part of 2011 as we've got to get the models done. And then actually, build the homes that we're starting to sell on a pre-sell basis today, and then after grand opening obviously more. We just don't have that data available, Mike.
Michael Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co: Okay. So let me just ask it another way and I also just wanted to get one last question if I could. You have 30% of your closings today from new communities, does that mean that you could get to 50% or greater by the end of the year and then my second kind of separate question is on the break-even analysis, and I know that's kind of a rough, as Ara said, is kind of rough basic numbers, but I noticed you were using 300 ASP. And for the last several quarters, it's been pretty consistent around 280, so that's a 7% difference. Is that based on your newer communities and where you expect the ASP to shift towards? Or are you assuming an improvement in price or is that just kind of the rough analysis that you were doing?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · quarters
Let me take a shot at it. First of all, what we've said for the full-year is that 40% of our deliveries, at least 40% we're expecting to be from newly identified communities. So you could -- it's going to be weighted towards the latter part of the year. So you can make whatever assumptions you want, but that's pretty clear guidance, I think, to provide you. With respect to the overly simplistic, as Ara described it, break-even analysis, you shouldn't read anything into the 300,000. It was just a nice round number to use in the calculation to give an illustration of what break-even results would be. If you want to change it to our current average sales prices, it's pretty easy to do.
Michael Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co: Okay.
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · quarters
I believe our average price of contracts for the quarter was about $293,000, so the very in-depth [ph] (35:36) was on our release. So pretty close to $300,000. We're just rounding it.
OP
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Carl Reichardt from Wells Fargo.
CL
Carl Reichardt - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC
Analyst · Carl Reichardt from Wells Fargo
On the Slide 12 that you guys have included often with the percentage of lots and development stage, is there a concentration, geographically, of assets in either the lots that are under 30% developed or over 80% developed?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Carl Reichardt from Wells Fargo
I'm kind of scanning the room to see whether any of my team members have a clue.
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · Carl Reichardt from Wells Fargo
I think we have some concentration of the undeveloped in California, a little more than the other markets. That being said, it’s not a dramatic number. We probably have the highest concentration of developed lots in the Texas market.
CL
Carl Reichardt - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC
Analyst · Carl Reichardt from Wells Fargo
Okay, I would assume so. And then the mothballed lots are included in there too, right Larry?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Carl Reichardt from Wells Fargo
Yes. The mothballed are included and they're probably weighted towards the less than 30% developed and that's probably geographically-weighted California and New Jersey.
CL
Carl Reichardt - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC
Analyst · Carl Reichardt from Wells Fargo
Okay. Super. And then, next question, Ara, has there been a change or maybe you can talk a little bit about the amount of time it's taking if you get a person new to attract from -- and you count them as traffic, how long is it taking them, if you convert them, before they sign? And has that time lapse between first visit and contract sign changed much? Maybe you can talk a little bit how that's evolved over the last year or two?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · Carl Reichardt from Wells Fargo
Yes. I don't think it's changed over the last year or two. Needless to say, in general, it's far greater than it was five years ago. Interestingly, it's a mix, it's really a polar mix. We've got some that make multiple, multiple decisions and it's strung out over a long period of time, particularly, as they wait to sell their homes. On the other hand, we have traffic that comes in, they finally sold their house, they weren't serious about looking until they sold it. And now, they need something right away. So it's really a mix, but I wouldn't say that there is a dramatic shift in that regard. I will say just from touring around our offices over the last month on the West Coast, out in Texas, in Florida, in general, we're definitely getting the sense that our sales people are getting increasingly enthusiastic about the traffic, the willingness and the interest of and the seriousness of the traffic that they're seeing out in the marketplace.
CL
Carl Reichardt - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC
Analyst · Carl Reichardt from Wells Fargo
Right. I appreciate the color guys.
OP
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Ellis from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
JL
Jonathan Ellis - BofA Merrill Lynch
Analyst · Jonathan Ellis from Bank of America Merrill Lynch
My first question is related to margin, it's sort of a two-part question. First is can you give any update on the gross margin spread between newer land versus older land? I think in the past, you had said it's about a 500-basis-point spread. I'm wondering if that's still a good assumption to be using. And then, the second question on margins is, any insight you can give us into non-price based incentives? To what extent those are being ratcheted up? And if they're having success, one thing we've heard is that options and upgrades have become much more prevalent in the last month as a way to entice buyers, so any update on the use of incentives?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · Jonathan Ellis from Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Well, when we talk about pricing, I always prefer the net pricing because it really doesn't matter where it comes from, more or less. And that's where I was saying, there was pricing pressure in November, December. Most recently, it’s definitely felt a little more stable. Generally, though I think your observation is correct, there has been more of a tendency among new home builders to do, other than the standard kind of closing costs approach, which is always helpful because it reduces the down payment requirement, there's definitely more emphasis on incentives that are used if they -- toward options and upgrades only. Generally speaking, that's a little less costly than outright price lowering obviously.
JL
Jonathan Ellis - BofA Merrill Lynch
Analyst · Jonathan Ellis from Bank of America Merrill Lynch
And then just a question on land, the gross margin spread between new and older land?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Jonathan Ellis from Bank of America Merrill Lynch
I don't know where you got the 500 basis points differential. I think what we said in the past is your best estimate of what the legacy margins were maybe at the end of the third or fourth quarter last year, I don't remember precisely when we might have said that, would have been what our total gross margin was because we didn't have a lot of deliveries from newly identified communities. And that's -- on average, the newly identified communities would average something close to 20%. It obviously depends on whether it's a Texas kind of community because we don't underwrite to a margin, we underwrite to an IRR. And in Texas where we're optioning finished lots on a just-in-time basis, the gross margin might be lower than 20%, but we get high inventory turns. And then in Washington DC, on a newly identified lot, the margin might be significantly higher than 20%, but it's a lower inventory turn to get to our 25-plus percent unlevered IRR, so it just depends on where the newly identified community is, as to what the margin is. But on average, it is around that 20% kind of number that we think that is normalized gross margins for Hovnanian.
JL
Jonathan Ellis - BofA Merrill Lynch
Analyst · Jonathan Ellis from Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Okay. Great. And then my second question, just on the financing side. I don't know if you have it available but obviously, a lot of talk about conforming loan limits and how those may be ratcheted down over time. Do you have any granularity you can share in terms of percentage of deliveries tied to mortgages or the principal balance between $625,000 and $730,000, and then, also within the sort of the traditional conforming level of $417 000 up to $625,000?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Jonathan Ellis from Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Not at my fingertips. I'm sure we have it at our mortgage company, but I don't have that data readily available. But our backlog average sales price and backlog today is $307,000, Paul? So we don't have a whole lot of our product that averages dramatically higher than that. So I don't think we're a big user of non-conforming, I mean, certainly we have some communities that use the higher loan limits but it's not a large percentage of what we do, but I just don't have the data at my fingertips to answer that.
JL
Jonathan Ellis - BofA Merrill Lynch
Analyst · Jonathan Ellis from Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Okay. I'll follow up.
OP
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Joel Locker from FBN Securities.
JS
Joel Locker - FBN Securities
Analyst · Joel Locker from FBN Securities
Just looking at your gross margins a little closer, if you say about 2/3 of your deliveries, like they'll be scheduled from new communities by the fourth quarter and if they’re throwing off a 20% gross margin versus the current 17% gross margin, which has been the run rate for legacy communities, would you say that by the fourth quarter, your gross margin should be at the 19% level using that weighting [ph] (53:29)?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Joel Locker from FBN Securities
We're just not going to make a projection on what our gross margin may or may not be at a particular point in time. We've given you about as much guidance as we can give you without making a specific projection.
JS
Joel Locker - FBN Securities
Analyst · Joel Locker from FBN Securities
Well, just assuming that pricing was flat, obviously, if it goes up or down it's going to be different?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Joel Locker from FBN Securities
Yes. I mean, you can make whatever assumptions you want, I'm just not going to -- just can't. Not willing to make an absolute projection on what our margins may or may not be even in a flat market by the end of the year.
JS
Joel Locker - FBN Securities
Analyst · Joel Locker from FBN Securities
Got you. And then just on the follow-up question on the consolidated February orders. What were they? I saw that the other -- that the chart on Slide 4 included a consolidate -- or joint ventures?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Joel Locker from FBN Securities
Probably not a whole lot.
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · Joel Locker from FBN Securities
We may be able to get that answer before we end the call. If we do, we'll tell you.
JS
Joel Locker - FBN Securities
Analyst · Joel Locker from FBN Securities
What was the number? I can't -- It's just hard to make out on the February total orders?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Joel Locker from FBN Securities
384.
JS
Joel Locker - FBN Securities
Analyst · Joel Locker from FBN Securities
All right.
OP
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Nishu Sood from Deutsche Bank.
RS
Rob Hansen - Deutsche Bank Securities
Analyst · Nishu Sood from Deutsche Bank
Hey, this is Rob Hansen on for Nishu. You guys touched on traffic a little bit, and would you characterize traffic quality as better lately? And what's generally drawing traffic in your communities lately? Has it been just word-of-mouth or promotions, mortgage rates, what seemed to work to luring buyers into your communities?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · Nishu Sood from Deutsche Bank
Well, first of all, traffic quality is definitely better. It was definitely a lot slower in November, December. It's seasonally slow in November, December but it felt slower than the normal seasonal level there. I can't say that we're doing anything uniformly across the country in terms of our approach. We're fairly decentralized in our marketing approach. So some geographies are advertising on radio, some are really focus more on the internet and getting Google hits or Bing hits, you name it. It does vary dramatically. I can't say there is any one thing that we are doing. What I would say is there's just been a more positive attitude for consumer sentiment in general. And I'd like to tell you that the increase in traffic is just at our communities and the increase in sales, but as I'm doing my tours, I visit our competitors as well, we track what our competitors are doing and it definitely feels like there is strength for the overall industry and new homebuilders in general right now.
RS
Rob Hansen - Deutsche Bank Securities
Analyst · Nishu Sood from Deutsche Bank
Okay. And just you -- you've kind of altered your maturity schedule and you've got some more breathing room, especially in the short term here. What's your preferred method of land spend? Outright land acquisition or are you going to be looking more to the JVs? And now that you have this additional cash, that cash is your kind of cash balance goal of $275 million changed at all or does that remain intact?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · Nishu Sood from Deutsche Bank
Yes. Our cash balance goals remain intact. It just gives us a little more firepower to grow. Generally, our ideal scenario is buying finished lots on a takedown basis, whether that's quarterly or monthly or annually, that's always the preferred route. If possible, we'd like our deposits to be equivalent of a Starbucks' Latte. But if we have to do a little more, we'd still prefer that. The second choice would be smaller, developed lots, there are 50 lots at a time, a year and a half worth, two years worth, that was more available earlier, it's a little bit more challenging to get the developed lots as much as we would like but we still find those opportunities. The third would be smaller undeveloped parcels. Again, small sites that we can get in and out of with relatively good inventory turns. And we are finding those opportunities around the country as well. Lastly, the joint ventures we’re pretty much trying to focus on those for the larger transactions where the site requires peak capital needs, approaching or over $20 million similar to what you saw with the GTIS transaction that we did two months ago on three sites, Northern California, Southern California and Washington.
RS
Rob Hansen - Deutsche Bank Securities
Analyst · Nishu Sood from Deutsche Bank
All right.
OP
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates.
IA
Ivy Zelman - Zelman and Associates
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
Your commentary on the spring or the beginnings of the selling season are obviously welcomed by the investment community. The questions we get a lot are within the various markets you're competing in. Is there a difference between the level of improvement in sales with respect to the first-time home buyer or the move-up buyer? And talking a little bit, if you could, maybe distinguishing between the buyer segments, if there's any discernible difference between the segments of your buyers? And any change that you'd see geographically. A lot of people assume the sand state which are more challenged with foreclosure overhang and higher unemployment levels, are those markets lagging, underperforming with respect to your improvement in sales or are you seeing a more consistent rebound off of lower bases maybe in those depressed markets where new construction has been arguably starved with no new products for a long time. So geographic and within the buyer mix side, please?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
Sure. Just first, geographic, I'd say the notable slower locations would be all of the markets in Florida and a little slower in the greater Sacramento area, and to some extent Minneapolis. Those are the ones that come to mind. On the little stronger side, I'd say the DC area, parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, Houston has been solid, and surprisingly recently, Chicago has been very solid. I'd say surprisingly because if you technically look, they've got still an MLS about a 13- or 14-month overhang month supply of existing homes, they've got a reasonably high unemployment rate in the nine-plus percent, but sales seem to be quite perky there. So those are the notable differences from geographies. On the product type, I'd say we really seen reasonable demand at all the different segments. I can't say that there is a pattern of active adults or first time or first-time move up that's really discernible across the country. It's a little different in certain markets. In Dallas, the higher end is just a little slower, we're doing a little bit better in the middle end. In Houston, the first-time home buying niche has been tougher because there has been, particularly on the lower end, because there has been qualification challenges with some of those buyers. But I wouldn't say, by niche there’s been any discernible national trend.
IA
Ivy Zelman - Zelman and Associates
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
Well, that's very helpful. I guess there's a lot of concern with interest rates moving up, and I don't know if you've got any commentary from your sales people and throughout the country, but is there a particular threshold of the mortgage rate that would concern your -- as long as it’s a steady sort of modest improvement or increase in rates. Just your views of is 6% the cut off for a 30-year fixed? Or is there resistance? Are people buying? Maybe your activities are improving because rates have moved up so you've gotten [indiscernible] (01:02:16). So just your perspective on what you think the magnitude of the rate increase can do to you? Or what the higher -- what rate will cut things off?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
Sure, completely unscientific. I'd say a rapid rise over 6% would be a psychological hurdle, but it's very unscientific gut sense. You can take that for what it's worth. I'd say in general, a slow, gentle rising environment is not the worst in the world. And it could get people to not be sitting on the fences too long.
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
Ivy, I think we would trade above 6% 30-year fixed rates. If it came because the economy was doing better and we were creating jobs. I don't believe interest rates are the issue today. I mean, they're still at historical lows in spite of the increase that we've had that moved them up a little bit by any kind of longer-term historical perspective, it's just unbelievably affordable. What's preventing people from buying today isn't interest-rate related, it's really jobs, the economy, consumer confidence to make that purchase. And if rates go up, I think it might be good news, if it's related to the economy getting better and jobs being created.
IA
Ivy Zelman - Zelman and Associates
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
I appreciate that. If I could sneak in one quick one, on your sensitivity, which was very helpful, in fact your slides, overall, were great. So Jeff, great job. Just in terms of the sensitivity, you show fixed cost with SG&A. What would be for community count growth? Is there a rule of thumb for each incremental community? How much of your G&A -- overall selling G&A would have to go up?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
It's fairly de minimis, Ivy, because as I think we’ve said in the script, you're probably adding certainly a construction superintendent, a...
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
Which is not in SG&A, obviously, as we mentioned in the script, that's in the gross margins, but...
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
There's really not much that gets added as we increase. There's some incremental but it's not a big number.
IA
Ivy Zelman - Zelman and Associates
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
Okay. Great.
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
And Ivy, just to remind you, and I know this is slightly different among the homebuilders, some homebuilders include commissions both inside and/or outside commissions, in selling costs, we do not. It's in our gross margin. And that's why we say we don't believe our SG&A has to increase very much as we increase our volume.
IA
Ivy Zelman - Zelman and Associates
Analyst · Ivy Zelman from Zelman & Associates
Great.
OP
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Smith from JPM Securities (sic) [JMP Securities]
MS
Michael G. Smith
Analyst
A couple of quick questions on land, if you don't mind. Could you detail a little bit where you've been purchasing the bulk of your land over the last quarter, say and into February?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in the press release also applies to any comments made during this conference call and to the information in the slide presentation. I will now like to turn the conference call over Ara Hovananian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hovnanian Enterprises. Ara, please go ahead
Let me see, it has really -- I don't track it per se, but I'll just give you anecdotally. We've had, let's see, some transactions interestingly in Ohio, which has been slow in the past that we found more opportunities recently. They've been at pretty deep discounts from the banks there. We found very little in Minneapolis recently, we'd like to find more but that's been quiet. We found some transactions in Washington DC. Found some in Pennsylvania. Found several developed lot opportunities in Houston. Some small bulk transactions in Dallas. Those are the quick ones that come to mind over the last couple of months. It's fairly spread.
MS
Michael G. Smith
Analyst
That's helpful. What, in general, is limiting to the extent that it is what you're able to go out and buy? Is it a lack of quality lots that you can find? Is it pricing that's above what you're willing to pay?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in the press release also applies to any comments made during this conference call and to the information in the slide presentation. I will now like to turn the conference call over Ara Hovananian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hovnanian Enterprises. Ara, please go ahead
The challenge is our underwriting criteria is that it has to work at today's prices and today's pace. So when you take that discipline and you figure out what you can pay for the land, it's typically a fairly low number. So to find the opportunities that pencil-out at today's price and get us that average 20% gross margin, we have to turnover a lot of rocks.
MS
Michael G. Smith
Analyst
In your markets in general as you're finding that even it doesn’t pencil-out there are plenty of A and B lots that you would want to take down available for you and you're just not willing to under -- they just don’t pencil-out the way you would want them to? Or are you finding that there's actually a lack of supply out there?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in the press release also applies to any comments made during this conference call and to the information in the slide presentation. I will now like to turn the conference call over Ara Hovananian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hovnanian Enterprises. Ara, please go ahead
No. I mean, it's clearly a finite supply and there are clearly more C and D locations that we have no interest in. But there are As and Bs and it's a matter of timing either the sellers finally say, "Okay I'm tired of waiting." Or price or the pace firms up in that little sub-market such that you could justify the price they are looking for, or in some cases interestingly enough, construction costs come down just that extra little bit and it makes the hurdle rates work. Generally speaking, the financial institutions are not dumping the properties but it is steadily and regularly being doled out as their internal teams can deal with their problem assets. So that's kind of a good environment, we'd rather it be steady and stable.
MS
Michael G. Smith
Analyst
Great, guys. I appreciate it.
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in the press release also applies to any comments made during this conference call and to the information in the slide presentation. I will now like to turn the conference call over Ara Hovananian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hovnanian Enterprises. Ara, please go ahead
Before the next question, I just want to respond to an earlier one on what was February's consolidated net contracts. The total net contracts including joint ventures was 384, 351 was the consolidated net contracts for whoever asked that question earlier.
OP
Operator
Operator
And your next question will come from the line of Michael Kim from CRT Capital.
ML
Michael Kim - CRT Capital Group LLC
Analyst · CRT Capital
I guess, my first question is more for Larry. Touching on the remaining strategy for the capital structure, thinking about some of the call options, do you plan on exercising upcoming call options on the second and third lien notes to help assist in bringing down your fixed costs, just a touch? And I guess, how should we think about bond repurchases going forward as a way to delever for the capital structure?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · CRT Capital
I think, obviously we look at all of the flexibility and options that are available to us on the calls and we are obviously in the process of analyzing some of that, as some of that's callable in the next couple of months. So we've not made a final decision one way or the other. I don't think you should expect us to use much of our capital to go out and repurchase debt. We do have the flexibility to do that but we don't think it's our highest and best use of capital generally. There may be an exception here or there for some of the higher-cost debt that's out there. But in general, I think we would rather invest our capital in new land deals that need our hurdle rates of 25% plus unlevered IRR and grow the company rather than take our cash and use it to pay down debt right now.
ML
Michael Kim - CRT Capital Group LLC
Analyst · CRT Capital
Understood, and I guess as follow-up, I appreciate the slide on the potential break-even scenarios. Just curious, the deliveries per community per year, how is this computed? Is this based off the average active communities during the year and I guess you described...
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · CRT Capital
If you go to -- let's see which slide it is. But we have our historical average annual deliveries, it's on -- or contracts, really it's Slide 5, okay? And the average during kind of normal times from a contract perspective, this isn't deliveries but obviously net contracts, deliveries would closely mirror is probably 44, 45 and the last couple of years we've been at 23. So one of the scenarios shows it at 23, and I think the highest one that Ara showed maybe got you to 33, still well below our kind of average norm of 44, 45.
ML
Michael Kim - CRT Capital Group LLC
Analyst · CRT Capital
Okay. And I guess, just in terms of the general trend over the past couple of years, how much has density changed for your communities? And I guess, with this metric in delivery per community per year, do you think you can reach some sort of inflection point in this metric over the next year, year and a half?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · CRT Capital
I'm not sure what you mean by density change?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · CRT Capital
You mean in terms of more multifamily or smaller lots, is that what you mean?
ML
Michael Kim - CRT Capital Group LLC
Analyst · CRT Capital
Yes, smaller lots, just thinking about the calculation of deliveries per community per year, I mean it's just --
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · CRT Capital
I think it's more across...
ML
Michael Kim - CRT Capital Group LLC
Analyst · CRT Capital
I'm wondering if there's any sensitivity that could shift that metric given the change in density or...
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · CRT Capital
I think it's more function of demand than any product type.
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · CRT Capital
Yes. I mean, generally speaking, we do have greater velocity in the greater densities, whether they're townhouses or small lot singles. Generally, those have a little greater velocity sales pace. And we are seeing a little bit more opportunity and activity in that segment of the market than the larger estate lots. I mean, we're -- we tend to be more focused there anyway, but there's probably a little bit more of a shift and bias toward that end of the market.
OP
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Tom Higbie from Deutsche Bank.
TH
Tom Higbie
Analyst · Tom Higbie from Deutsche Bank
Quickly, what are you thinking for community count, any kind of targets you could provide for 2011, 2012, where should we think about the trajectory of community count going?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Tom Higbie from Deutsche Bank
I think what we said very specifically was that assuming that we can find deals that underwrite based on today's price and today's absorption pace, the community count would grow but we've not at this stage given any guidance towards a particular number.
TH
Tom Higbie
Analyst · Tom Higbie from Deutsche Bank
Okay. And also, when you look at traffic levels today versus traffic levels, where they were back when you were kind of 44 orders a year, how are traffic levels -- how much of the difference in today's pace is traffic and how much of it is closing that traffic? Meaning, is there any leverage that you can get out of today's traffic? Do you need to grow traffic significantly or can you actually get some leverage out of just closing current people walking through?
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · Tom Higbie from Deutsche Bank
I would say, in general, our traffic levels are lower and it's just reflective of the same issues that are affecting sales. We need confidence to go up. We need employment numbers to get better. And I think, that'll attract traffic as well as customers.
TH
Tom Higbie
Analyst · Tom Higbie from Deutsche Bank
Okay. So just a follow up on that. Is traffic down as hard as orders are? Or is traffic down something less than that and you're just closing a lower percentage?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Tom Higbie from Deutsche Bank
Traffic is down every bit as much as orders are.
TH
Tom Higbie
Analyst · Tom Higbie from Deutsche Bank
Okay.
OP
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Rehaut from JPMorgan.
Michael Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co: Just a follow-up, and I don't know if you have this readily available, but maybe you can follow up later. Just wanted to get a sense with some of the recent discussions out there about risk retention by the banks in terms of underwriting anything that's, I think, less than a 20% down on the conforming loans. The banks would, at least in current discussions, have to retain a 5% piece of the mortgage. And you could see as a result, the conforming sub-20% down payment area become a little tighter. Do you have any sense of, I think, you said that your conforming loans right now are about 46%, do you have a sense of what the average down payment is for those loans?
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Michael Rehaut from JPMorgan
No, I don't have it broken out by product type but the proposal you're talking about, I saw it for the first time yesterday afternoon. I think it's still in the proposal phase rather than anything that's been finalized. And I'd grouped it into the same comments I made during the script, that I think there's a lot of things being considered and nothing's been finalized. And then, I think the government's going to be very cautious about implementing something that somehow would limit the availability of mortgages to consumers across the country, especially in light of today's economic conditions. So certainly going to keep a close eye on that. Don't have the answer. We'll certainly get back to you, Michael. I think what you mean is conforming conventional, because FHA/VA is a big portion of our business today as well.
Michael Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co: Yes, just the conforming conventional. Exactly.
SO
J. Sorsby
Analyst · Michael Rehaut from JPMorgan
But I can certainly get back to you and tell you what our average down payment on conforming conventional is but my guess is it's probably not too far different than what our overall average loan to value is but I'll follow up with it. Jeff will find out and we'll give you a call.
Michael Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co: Great.
OP
Operator
Operator
At this time, I'm showing no further questions in queue. I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Ara Hovnanian for any closing remarks.
AH
Ara Hovnanian
Analyst · the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in the press release also applies to any comments made during this conference call and to the information in the slide presentation. I will now like to turn the conference call over Ara Hovananian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hovnanian Enterprises. Ara, please go ahead
Great. Well, thank you very much. I know all of you are as curious as we are about the spring selling season. It feels good thus far, but we’ll look forward to give you more specific data on our next call. Thank you.
OP
Operator
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our conference call for today. Thank you for your participating and have a nice day. All parties may now disconnect.