Charles Merdian
Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open
Thanks Eric. Home sales revenues for the quarter were $236.8 million based on 1,139 homes closed, which represents a 34% increase over the fourth quarter of 2015. Our average sales price was $207,928 for the fourth quarter an 11.3% year-over-year increase and slightly above our third quarter average sales price of $205,613. Sales prices realized from homes closed during the fourth quarter range from the 140s to over $520,000. In the fourth quarter, approximate average sales prices were $202,000 in Texas, $243,000 in our Southwest division, $181,000 in our Southeast division, $199,000 in Florida and $332,000 in our Northwest division. For the year, we closed 44 homes in our [Toronto] communities, representing approximately 1% of our overall closings. Going forward, we expect closings from our Toronto communities to continue to be a small percentage of our overall business. Gross margin was 27.2% this quarter, compared to 26.5% for the same quarter last year. Our adjusted gross margin was 28.5% this quarter, compared to 27.6% for the fourth quarter of 2015, which is on the higher end of our expected range as we realized higher overall average sales prices and the benefit of managing our overall construction costs. For the year, gross margin was 26.4% compared to 26.5% for the full year of 2015 and adjusted gross margin was 27.8% for both 2015 and 2016. Adjusted gross margin this quarter excludes approximately $3.2 million of capitalized interest, charged to cost of sales during the quarter, representing 137 basis points and we expect this to increase by 20 to 40 basis points throughout 2017, primarily due to rising interest rates. Combined, selling, general and administrative expenses for the fourth quarter were 12.7% of revenues, compared to 13.1% in the fourth quarter of last year. Selling expenses for the quarter were $18 million or 7.6% of home sales revenue, compared to $14 million or 7.9% of home sales revenue for the fourth quarter of 2015, a 30 basis point improvement. Selling expenses as a percentage of home sales revenue improved primarily as a result of operating leverage realized related to advertising costs and increased revenue. General and administrative expenses were 5.1% of home sales revenues compared to 5.2% of home sales revenue for the fourth quarter of 2015, a 10 basis point improvement and consistent with the third quarter of this year. For the full year 2016, combined, selling, general and administrative expenses were 13.1% of revenues compared to 13.8% in 2015. For 2017, we expect to realize operating leverage offset by additional overhead related to our recent software implementation, compliance costs related to Sarbanes-Oxley and entry into new markets. We typically expect the first quarter to have the highest SG&A ratio as our first quarter generally results in the lowest closings on a per community basis during the year. Pretax income for the quarter was $34.9 million or 14.8% of home sales revenue, an increase of 120 basis points over the same quarter in 2015. We generated net income of $23.2 million or 9.8% of home sales revenue for the fourth quarter of 2016, which represents earnings per share of $1.09 per basic share and $1.01 per diluted share. For the year, we generated net income of $75 million or $3.61 basic earnings per share and $3.41 diluted earnings per share. As mentioned on previous calls, weighted shares outstanding for calculating diluted earnings per share are impacted by our outstanding convertible notes. Under the treasury stock method, the convertible notes are dilutive if the market price of our stock exceeds the $21.52 per share conversion price of the convertible notes. In the fourth quarter of 2016, our average stock price was approximately $31.50, exceeding the conversion price and therefore the convertible notes were determined to be dilutive. This resulted in approximate 1.3 million share increase to the weighted average shares outstanding for the diluted EPS calculation for the quarter. Fourth quarter gross orders were 1,117 and net orders were 808. Ending backlog for the year was 446 homes and the cancellation rate for the fourth quarter was 27.7% and for the year, our cancellation rate was 24.5%. We ended the quarter with a portfolio of 29,460 owned and controlled lots and as of December 31, 13,167 of the 20,992 owned lots were either raw or under development. As of December 31, we had approximately $50 million of cash, $718 million of real estate inventory and total assets of $815 million. Our gross debt to capitalization was 53% and net debt to capitalization was 49.7%. We had $325 million outstanding under our credit facility as well as $85 million of convertible notes outstanding at December 31. Our credit facility was increased by $25 million in December of 2016 and increased an additional $15 million in February of this year, bringing the total available to $400 million. Utilizing our universal shelf registration statement, we established our second aftermarket common stock offering program during September of 2016. Under this program, we may issue and sell up to $25 million of our common stock from time to time. We do not issue any shares related to the ATM program during the fourth quarter and have approximately $15.5 million remaining under this program. At this point, I would like to turn it back over to Eric.