Earnings Labs

KB Home (KBH)

Q2 2014 Earnings Call· Fri, Jun 27, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Rob and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the KB Home 2014 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Today’s conference is being recorded and a live webcast is available on KB Home’s website at kbhome.com. Following the company’s opening remarks we will open the line for questions. (Operator Instructions) KB Home’s discussion today may include forward-looking statements that reflect management’s current views and expectations of market conditions, future events and the company’s business performance. These statements are not guarantees of future results and the company does not undertake any obligation to update them. Due to a number of factors outside of its control, including those identified in its SEC filings, the company’s actual results could be materially different from those expressed and/or implied by the forward-looking statements. A reconciliation of non-GAAP measures referenced during today’s discussion to their most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in the company’s earnings release issued earlier today and/or on the Investor Relations page of the company’s website. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Chief Executive Officer for KB Home, Mr. Jeff Mezger. Mr. Mezger, you may begin.

Jeff Mezger

Management

Thank you, Rob and thank you everyone for joining us today for a review of our second quarter results. With me are Jeff Kaminski, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Bill Hollinger, our Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer; and Thad Johnson, our Vice President and Treasurer. Today, I will begin with an overview of our performance for the quarter. I will then provide an update on the progress we have made on our three key initiatives and how we are continuing to drive our profitable growth trajectories. We are proud of our performance in the second quarter as we continue to build momentum. Once again, we improved in all of our key financial metrics, which reinforces that our strategy is working. We are achieving our growth targets and continue to enhance our execution to further improve profitability. We remain on offense and are continuing to invest in land to support future growth. We are now consistently putting points on our strategic scoreboard for growth and profitability and are winning. This is a new chapter at KB Home. We have restored solid profitability and are well-positioned strategically. We look forward to capturing additional profit opportunities in the current housing environment, which is characterized by steady yet moderate growth at levels which vary dramatically in strength from city to city. After I share comments on our strategy and a macro view of housing, Jeff Kaminski will provide details on our financial results. Then, I will provide concluding remarks before opening the call up for your questions. As I have already said, we are very pleased with our improved performance in the second quarter. Let me share some of the highlights with you. Revenues for the quarter increased to $565 million and net income rose to $27 million. Our…

Jeff Kaminski

Management

Thank you, Jeff and good morning. We are pleased with the earnings improvement and continued progress across our core financial and operational metrics that we achieved during the quarter. In addition to year-over-year growth in revenues and operating margin, we generated significant increases in both our net order value, which was up 19% and quarter end backlog value, which at more than $1 billion was 24% higher than a year ago. These results support our performance expectations for both the third and fourth quarters of this year. To help sustain the performance improvements we made in the second quarter, we also continued our aggressive strategic investment in land and land development to support future growth in both open communities and top line revenues in the remainder of 2014 and beyond. During the second quarter 2014, net income grew to $26.6 million or $0.27 per diluted share, representing a substantial improvement from the same period a year ago. Higher revenues driven by a rising average selling price combined with improvements in both our housing gross profit margin and our SG&A expense ratio were the main drivers of our earnings growth in the quarter. Second quarter revenues totaled $565 million, up 8% from $524 million in the year earlier quarter. This top line growth was fueled by an increase of more than $52 million or 43% in the central region. Revenues in the Southwest and Southeast regions were essentially flat year-over-year and the West Coast region was down about 5% compared to an exceptionally strong Q2 2013 when regional revenues more than doubled versus 2012. For the second half of the year, we expect our West Coast region to generate higher revenues compared to the second half of 2013 as both our regional unit deliveries and average selling price are expected to…

Jeff Mezger

Management

Thanks, Jeff. Before concluding this morning’s call, I would like to recognize the hard work of all of our employees at KB Home who come in each day with energy and commitment to advancing our results. In summary, we are solidly profitable and we are gaining momentum. Our business model, investment strategy and community positioning are working. We are successfully growing revenue through a combination of higher ASPs while sustaining one of the top sales rates per community in the industry. We plan to open more than 80 communities in the second half of the year, which should increase net orders and unit deliveries. Our balance sheet will be significantly enhanced with our expected fourth quarter reversal of our DTA and we intend to continue investing strategically to support future profitable growth. We look forward to capturing the tremendous opportunities ahead of us. Thank you all for your time and attention today. And now we’ll be happy to open it up for your questions. Rob?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. Our first question is from the line of Michael Rehaut with JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Michael Rehaut - JPMorgan

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning, everyone and nice quarter.

Jeff Mezger

Management

Thanks Mike.

Michael Rehaut - JPMorgan

Analyst

The first question I had was on gross margins, you continue to have some nice progression there and the second quarter number was a little bit better than we were looking for and I’d venture to say general expectations. So I was hoping you could kind of give us a sense, Jeff, perhaps what drove the sequential improvement from 1Q to 2Q if there was any regional mix there or if it was just further execution of either pricing etcetera and certainly just any thoughts in terms of that you continue to expect further expansion from these levels as we get into 3Q and 4Q?

Jeff Kaminski

Management

Well, Mike, yes, I can provide some details on that. First of all on the sequential it’s basically what we have been talking about for quite some time I mean it’s the communities that are driving it. The openings versus the close outs and also progression with communities that were open both quarters, so at that level for our sequential improvement there is nothing that really stands out as a huge one-off driver, it’s just continuing the path we have been on. The 18.9% we just reported on adjusted basis was the sixth consecutive quarter of improvement. And I think significantly as we look at it the dollars per delivery, the gross margin dollars at over $60,000 in the quarter was the highest since the third quarter 2006. So we have been pretty pleased with the progression for the rest of the year. I think we will continue to see sequential improvement in both the third and fourth quarter. And I would expect to be let’s say in 19s in both of those quarters which at least is very close to our initial goal of getting to the 20%. And like we are all saying I mean we are facing some headwinds out there in both material and labor cost inflation as well as some level of increasing land costs but up until now we have proven that we have been able to overcome those factors as we continue to close that gap against our own targets. So and we are pretty optimistic on that and like the trends we are seeing. We are also seeing support for that in our backlog margins.

Michael Rehaut - JPMorgan

Analyst

That’s great. I appreciate that. And I guess second question for Jeff Mezger, as there are two Jeffs I have to distinguish. Jeff, you mentioned that in your opening remarks that there was evidence of a reemergence of the first-time buyer and I was hoping you could expand on that a little bit in terms of that if that’s something you are seeing in your own business itself and particularly given that you continue to perhaps shift to maybe away from the historically traditional first-time buyer more of a financially – more financially a stronger type of first time buyer that’s more financially able and more perhaps the move up community, so I was just wondering if this was something that you kind of saw specifically within your own business or if it was more just kind of general comments as it relates to perhaps mortgage lending standards or other trends that you see out there?

Jeff Mezger

Management

Mike, it’s part of why I split it into the two different business dynamics we are dealing with today. In the higher income land constrained areas I don’t know that our first-time buyer mix has changed. It’s a different first-time buyer I know it’s a higher income buyer than we would have seen 10 years ago. What I was trying to point out in the cities pick Texas City because all four of the larger cities has solid job growth and real population growth going on today. And it’s because of the job growth we are seeing more first-time buyers. They are not – it’s a well heeled first-time buyer, but it’s not the high income first-time buyer like you would see in Orange County or up in the Santa Clara County. So I think it’s because you have job growth going on in those cities and that’s within our own business we are seeing this.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Eli Hackel with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Eli Hackel - Goldman Sachs

Analyst

Thanks and good morning. You have talked about tremendous upside just remaining in the current markets, so I am not going to new ones, you clearly are getting a lot of SG&A leverage, could you talk about SG&A leverage as your community count growth accelerates given the land investment that you have done?

Jeff Mezger

Management

I can make some high level comments Eli and then I can kick it to Jeff for any numbers he wants to share. If you think about we have walked through this trajectory of community counts accelerating as we come out of the year and you always have cost incurred in your SG&A before you get to the revenue down the road. So we have been able to continued to contain costs even with this ramp up that’s occurring and have been able to improve our SG&A ratio while carrying some load for the future growth. So it’s a reflection on our commitment to keeping things in balance and you touched on another side of it where the markets that we are in today one time we did over 25,000 houses. So our strategy right now is to continue to grow larger businesses, where we are at our current market footprint and continued to leverage SG&A just like you saw in the second quarter.

Jeff Kaminski

Management

And to add to that, I guess just a little bit, on our increasing revenues, how we generally think of it is on increase in revenues, we have about a 5% variable cost component included in our SG&A. And that’s basically there to cover things like commissions and other related costs of new communities. So, we do and we have shown that with our results, achieve tremendous leverage as we are increasing that top line and increasing the top line through community count is really the path to stronger bottom line profits for us.

Eli Hackel - Goldman Sachs

Analyst

Great. And then maybe just one follow-up on the community count growth, you talked about a measurable increase in ‘15, there is a potential to give us a magnitude of ‘15 growth versus ‘14 growth, clearly you have had a lot of land development spend and land acquisition over the past 12 to 24 months?

Jeff Kaminski

Management

Right, right. Well, I think first of all, just talking about 2014 for a moment. What we have seen in the first two quarters, we saw 10% up in the first quarter. We are up 7% in the second quarter. Our expectation right now for the third quarter is around that same pace call it, high single-digits maybe hitting 10% in Q3. Q4 will see an acceleration in that, I would say would be somewhere in the mid-teens maybe even high-teens and these are averages. So, when we look at it, we look beginning and at quarter end, we just have a 2 point average. So, on an average basis, we will drive it higher. We are still on pace as we mentioned earlier to hit our end of year target, where we expect that end of year to be 15% to 20% up versus the end of 2013. And that’s pretty important as it relates to 2015 first quarter, because now we have a beginning number that’s already at least we believe is at least 15% higher than the beginning number of the 2014 first quarter. And we think we can grow it from there. So, particularly in the first half of the year of 2015, where obviously we have our best visibility right now, we do expect to see acceleration and we expect to see community count in those quarters closer to what we are seeing in the fourth quarter this year.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Bob Wetenhall of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Bob Wetenhall - RBC Capital Markets

Analyst

Hey, good morning. You guys have done a lot of hard work in increasing profitability and delivering on your target, so you have been talking about for gross margin performance kind of bumping up in that 19%, 20% range, how much room can you get through the model the way you are designing it with mix and locating in some very good ASP areas? Can that go to 22, can that go to 24 in the next couple of years?

Jeff Mezger

Management

Well, go ahead, if you got a number.

Jeff Kaminski

Management

Yes. Look, we really haven’t guided out a couple of years out. I mean, what we talked about right now is an initial target within the company and we believe that very much. I mean, when we were negative operating earnings, our initial target was positive operating earnings and it was positive net income. Now, it’s driving expansion in the operating earnings margin and in our net income and same thing on the margin side. Our initial targets is 20% and we feel confident we are going to get there. I do believe there is more room to expand beyond that. Our highs in the prior cycle are well above that. And when you look at normalized rates in prior cycles, we were in basically the low to mid 20s. So, I do believe there is the ability to get there. We are continuing to very carefully balance pace and price and you can see it in our sales absorptions. On a year-over-year basis, for example, this quarter, we are down 2%. On a per community basis, it was like one-tenth of a sale per community per month in the quarter. So, we have been very carefully balancing that and really emphasizing the margin side of the business. We think it’s important for the health of the business going forward. And we will continue to strive to achieve these higher margins we can go to, but like I said normalized, it’s higher than the 20%. We are very confident with the 20% as our annual target.

Bob Wetenhall - RBC Capital Markets

Analyst

Glad to hear that. If you could give a little bit more color or granularity on the new mortgage structure, it seems like it allows you guys to have a little bit better control over your own destiny by putting things in your hands? Would this also have a P&L impact and what do you think it does strategically for the company? Thanks.

Jeff Mezger

Management

Bob, I touched on that in my comments and it’s a basically 50:50. They are the managing partner. And as I shared it, we know it will help our predictability of deliveries, because you will have a mortgage partner that you can trust when they commit to doing something that they will perform and they have been doing that even today in our marketing relationship. So you have a good business partner. You will have better visibility on buyers closing dates which gives the salespeople confidence and with consistently in underwriting. The salespeople will have confidence when they are writing contracts whether the buyer is going to qualify or not. So I think it will actually help our sales as well and we will see how that plays out. But in the past in our previous venture it became a profit stream for the company and that’s not the primary purpose, the primary purpose is to control your business better and have a predictable delivery and raise the customer satisfaction with the consumer and that’s our top priorities. But we expect it down the road it should bring income into company as the JV matures.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Ivy Zelman, Zelman & Associates. Please proceed with your question. Ivy Zelman - Zelman & Associates: Good afternoon guys. Good quarter. Maybe on the same vein Jeff if you can chat a little bit about the specifics on underwriting, you mentioned that you are seeing some easing with respect to the mortgage availability, maybe you can give us some specifics and what you are seeing as compared to others that are not seeing as much, but that’s the first question. And secondly as you are incrementally adding to your land position you talked about the two different types of markets land constrained markets and higher priced versus what’s driven by the entry level consumer coming in with job growth maybe when you think about the land market what percent would say is being more acquired for that more entry level type product offering versus the more affluent higher end? So those are my questions. Thank you.

Jeff Mezger

Management

Thanks Ivy. On the mortgage side, you can see it even in the bonds that are being pooled right now. The FICO scores are coming down. They are still not to normalized levels if you think of the what the agencies allow and whether it’s FHA or GSE, so 680 is a pretty good FICO score. The pools are still 720, 730, but they are down from 750 or 760. So the FICO scores are coming down a little bit. And anecdotally with some of the mortgage companies we have done business with their overlays are easing. And I think the more clarity that is out there on QM and QRM and the put back risk and reserves and everything that’s coming to a head right now. They are coming to the close on writing all those. I think as you see more clarity it should continue to loosen up. As far as what you call first-time buyer communities which I would call first-time first move up and move down is just a different price point in a more readily available land market I will call it. And we see opportunities in both because of the land constraint in the higher priced areas I think you will see in the future more growth as the markets recover. You will see more were community investment in the more traditional markets. We are going to continue to chase everything that we can in these land-constrained areas. And it’s hard to answer that because the land-constrained areas also come with a higher price per acre or higher price per lot, but there is not as many of them. So I would – I can just say we intend to field both of them and think we have a nice growth trajectory now in either market segment.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line Stephen Kim with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Stephen Kim - Barclays

Analyst · Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks very much guys. I had a question regarding the use of land options as you go forward, obviously the move towards more desirable land constrained parcels, usually we think of those as being parcels where if you try to tie them up your options usually you have to put more earnest money down. Internally your company has not actually put a lot of earnest money down as percentage of total purchase price, so we are kind of curious to see if you could sort of talk about are you intending to sort of change that in anyway, what kind of levels of deposits or earnest money should we be expecting from the company going forward? Thanks.

Jeff Kaminski

Management

Are you talking – Steve are you talking about the consumer on land deals, you confused me with the question?

Stephen Kim - Barclays

Analyst · Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Sorry, land deals.

Jeff Kaminski

Management

Okay. Well, every deal is going to have a different story, it’s kind of interesting. I keep talking about this relationships are very critical in the terms of deals and the types of businesses you can put together. And if you think about Irvine as an example, where we have a great business relationship with them and we have a large presence, all of those are option deals in a very land-constrained environment and it’s because of relationship and the trust and the structure that they prefer as sellers. So, you have high-priced lots, high-priced product, yet you are still getting friendly terms on the deal. When you go to the Playa Vistas of the world, it’s just flat out cash. You are paying cash for those, because there is 20 people lined up behind you that would buy it and the seller doesn’t need to take terms. So, those are the bookends. Interestingly, I have shared in the past we have done some option deals in the Bay Area, large acquisitions, because of the relationship between the seller and our team. And at the same time, there is other deals we have done up there, where we have had to write a check. So, it’s as you get to less land-constrained areas, you will see more favorable options and terms and we are open to doing both and primary focus for us is which gives us the highest margin.

Stephen Kim - Barclays

Analyst · Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

The highest margin, not necessarily the highest return or in your view are they similar enough that you can collapse that down to a margin analysis?

Jeff Mezger

Management

But you have to balance both, but if it’s a phase taken, it’s buy it six months later, you are going to buy it or you can buy it today at a lower price and raise your margin will go for the higher margin.

Stephen Kim - Barclays

Analyst · Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Got it.

Jeff Mezger

Management

But it’s a balance of both, you have to hit your returns on the cash and what gives you the most margin between the different structures.

Stephen Kim - Barclays

Analyst · Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Sure. It makes sense. Jeff, do you have a target for actually, Jeff Kaminski, do you have a target for inventory turnover that we could be thinking about as we go forward?

Jeff Kaminski

Management

Right now, Stephen, we are really focused on community count growth and driving that growth through the acquisitions through the strategy where we are putting forward into our model. At a point in time, I do believe we will start ratcheting back on that as we get happier with the trajectory on the growth. And I think we could share some targets at that point in time.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of David Goldberg with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

David Goldberg - UBS

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning and thanks for taking the call.

Jeff Mezger

Management

Good morning, David.

David Goldberg - UBS

Analyst

Good morning. So, my first question was on the design studios and if you could talk about kind of the take per buyer, if you have seen any change in that, Jeff Mezger you made some – I think some interesting comments beginning about changing some of how you are showing some of the product to emphasize some of the things you found very unique in the KB offering. Can you just tell us a little bit kind of what’s going on the design studios? Have you seen any change in buyer behavior? And I guess that’s my first question.

Jeff Mezger

Management

Well, it’s interesting, David, because as our business has evolved, we have had to operate a different studio approach in the higher priced high income areas than we would in the more median price ranges. A good example would be down in Irvine, where you don’t offer one level of granite counters, you would offer six and you – and the consumer will go to level 6 out of the gate whereas in the Inland Empire, they may want to upgrade the granite and they are happy with level 1. And five, six, seven years ago, we may not have had as many high-priced goods offered in the Irvine studio as we do today. And then out in the more traditional areas, it will be a little lower. And the other interesting thing for us and its shame on us through the downturn and I have shared this before, we somewhat neutered our studios and that the intent of the studio was to help you saw house is first and foremost. And then it should be a profit stream as well. And in some of the markets, where we dropped to a very low volume level and you can’t support a studio, we just put them into a double-wide trailer or a garage somewhere, which helps you still sell some level of options, but as you lose the positive in favorable retail environment to get people excited about selling homes. And we are hearing anecdotes now that several out of Sacramento for instance were after the opening in the next group of sales half of them visited the studio before they bought a home. And I just heard one this week in Phoenix, where we have opened up a new studio and someone made an appointment for their studio final before they had even contracted on the house. And we didn’t lose sight of it in the downturn, but you have to do what you have to do to, to keep your overhead in check. And as we roll these things out, we are seeing them help us on the selling floor as well. So, I think you will hear a lot from us in the future as this continues to evolve and get back to what it was.

David Goldberg - UBS

Analyst

Is it fair and we had read something earlier this month about a design studio and a mall environment to try to drive more traffic to the community? Is it fair to say that if that successfully would see more of those kind of opportunities as using the design studio as more of an advertising tool?

Jeff Mezger

Management

Absolutely. It’s no different than another model. And our Sacramento studio by the way is right across the loop road from a Nordstrom in the number one mall in Sacramento. So, it’s exactly what we did.

David Goldberg - UBS

Analyst

And then my question was in terms of the profitability, if we kind of think about this divide between the more land constrained areas, more coastal areas in California as an example and maybe what would be a little bit more of an inland area? When you think about the uptake for buyer, is it significantly different in the design studio and when you think about the profitability, you mentioned having the six kind of granite for the move-up buyer is paying a little bit more and maybe a little bit more down market or maybe from a fewer options in the different market? Are the margins on that different as you kind of get back to more of an entry-level buyer over time? And then are the price points or the uptake I guess when we think about it, how significant is the difference there?

Jeff Mezger

Management

Well, I don’t want to get into the specifics of it in terms of one studio versus another, but to start with the understanding, it’s the same size home, whether it’s in the Inland Empire or Irvine or Playa Vista, they are both 2,000 feet, they are 2,000 feet and there is only so much flooring that goes in and the kitchen is only so big. What’s interesting about it is that we are seeing a similar percent of the home price in either location, so if it’s a $400,000 home in the Inland Empire, they may spend $35,000, I don’t know, 9%. And if it’s $800,000 or $900,000 home along the coast, they will spend $70,000 or $80,000. So, the percentages are similar. And what they will do in the higher-priced areas is go to more upgraded product of the same type of component, whether its cabinets or the counters or flooring is much higher. And what we also see more money spent on structural options in the higher-priced areas, where they will – they want the accordion doors to the patio or those type of things. And what it tells you in either case, they are designing the home and plan to live in it. And they are making the home the way they wanted and it’s tied to a budget and now in Inland Empire maybe I want a bigger home or I need another bedroom and level 1 granite and in Irvine it’s given me all the way to the top, I want it exactly like the model. And we always price our studios to be accretive to margin after studio overhead. So, it’s not a drain on our SG&A and it’s typically it will add a little bit to our margins and every $1,000 of studio revenues is critical to us as every $1,000 of home price for lot premium.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Dan Oppenheim of Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question.

Dan Oppenheim - Credit Suisse

Analyst · your question.

Thanks very much. You talked a lot about going to the higher price point in especially the first time buyers there are not so affluent, but just little higher end, some other builders have talked about taking more cost out to bring the ASP down. Have you given any thought to it and just how do you view it overall?

Jeff Mezger

Management

Dan, we do both. In the land-constrained areas, the land deal is where it starts the key to your success. And if its $1 million home on whatever the lot cost is the better you buy the land, probably has more impact on the margin then if you take $500 out of the sheet rock bid. We still go for those things in the coastal area, because every dollar is important, but it starts with the land deal on the more traditional demand markets, as I call it. Our strategy is to bracket the median income. And it will go above the median income and depend on how large the submarket is, how big the buying pool is, we will go a little bit higher than the median, but we always target the median. So, there in our view, there is a constraint on how much that income that you target can afford. There is a limit to it. And we have to keep lowering our cost in those areas, because every time you raise price, you move away from the market. So, we drive our cost down best we can and in those cases, the lot has a much lower percent of the revenue and therefore you have to get it out of your direct.

Dan Oppenheim - Credit Suisse

Analyst · your question.

Got it. Okay. And then two early remarks, you talked about some of the recent stats and talked about the May new home sales with the increase, is that what you saw in terms of your results for May and any color you can offer on June?

Jeff Mezger

Management

I can say just in general I will turn it over to Jeff, Dan. But there was a lot of coverage I will say of the spring selling season and what happened this monthly or that month. We saw a pretty typical rhythm March, April, May, our traffic is up year-over-year very nicely. There is a lot of buyer interest out there. And for us the term I have been using it was the most predictable selling quarter I have seen around here where a week in and week out there was a rhythm to it and we continue to balance price and pace. So I would say it was a solid quarter from month to month. So I don’t know that will say May was better than April or worse than March. We had a pretty nice rhythm all the way through.

Jeff Kaminski

Management

Right, I obviously agree with that. The traffic trend was nice as Jeff said we were up about 13% on a per community basis for the whole quarter and trends continued into June. So what we see is – what we saw I think in the second quarter as we made reference earlier to our absorption rate per community on a year-over-year basis was a market that although the absorptions didn’t progress from last year they maintained nicely what we thought was a pretty good pace last year and we were able to achieve higher margins on the sales and certainly on the deliveries in a quarter. So the market right now is good, I wouldn’t say it’s great, but what we are seeing in the communities has been pretty consistent performance and certainly nice performance on the traffic side.

Jeff Mezger

Management

I would add we think our traffic levels were up because of the locations were opened and they are typically in areas with higher consumer confidence and stronger economics and market dynamics and that’s probably why our traffic levels were up.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our final question today is coming from the line of Megan McGrath with MKM Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Megan McGrath - MKM Partners

Analyst

Good afternoon or good morning to you. I would like you to sort of address one of the issues I think that folks get concerned about which is you have aggressively bought land specifically in California over the last couple of years and if that market slows I think there is some concern that you could see a squeeze on your margin if you aren’t able to raise price, so can you talk about your ability to continue to raise price or keep prices steady in California outside of any product mix benefits?

Jeff Mezger

Management

Sure Megan I have to keep reiterating this. It is a very, very local business and interestingly in the land constrained areas where we are investing, take the Fremont deal as an example. The price points for our product are much closer to resale medians than the price for new product out in the lesser submarkets. We actually are closer to median than the median incomes in the more land constrained areas because you have such large populations and such depths of demand with no product out there. Where we tend to see softening when the market turns as the communities that are in a B minus location where job growth isn’t there yet and people as prices may adjust they have a choice of move to closer end but take that flyer community as an example. The people that are buying there they don’t even know there is any kind of an economic issue. They feel good about things. They have a good job. They have solid incomes. And the other thing I would add the things that we are opening today are part of what’s been a frustration for me that we are attacking if the time to get things open has extended. And a lot of things that we are opening right now were acquired two, three years ago and are just now coming to market, so everything is performing as we open them and we think our investments are working out nicely.

Megan McGrath - MKM Partners

Analyst

Great. Thank you. And then Jeff just a quick modeling question for you obviously you saw a big decline in interest expense in the last couple of quarters should we expect it to kind of flatten out from these levels or to continue to go down as we move through the year and into 2015?

Jeff Kaminski

Management

You are modeling on the SG&A ratio?

Megan McGrath - MKM Partners

Analyst

No. Sorry, interest expense?

Jeff Kaminski

Management

Interest expense, yes. So on the interest if you look at it in the first half of’13 we are about 7.6% in total, that’s the combination of the interest expense plus the amortize. For the full year ’13 we are about 6.7%. The first half of this year we are up 5.7%, so we pulled a couple of points off that first half of ‘13 number. And I’d say for the full year we will probably be close to right around the range of 5%, so almost 2 points off the full year as well. So, hopefully that’s helpful.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the floor right to Mr. Jeff Mezger for closing comments.

Jeff Mezger

Management

Okay. Thanks again Rob and thank you all for joining us today and we look forward to showing more success as the year continues to unfold. Have a great day and weekend.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and we thank you for your participation.