Charles Merdian
Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open
Thanks, Eric. As previously mentioned, home sales revenues for the quarter were $279 million, based on 1,244 homes closed, which represents a 71.3% increase over the first quarter of 2017. Sales prices realized from homes closed during the first quarter range from the 140s to over $500,000 and averaged $224,000, $296, a 4.8% year-over-year increase. The increase in average sales price year-over-year reflects changes in product mix, price points in certain new markets and a favorable pricing environment. In the first quarter, approximate average sales prices by division were $206,000 in Central, $276,000 in the Southwest, $197,000 in the Southeast, $203,000 in Florida, and $337,000 in the Northwest. Gross margin as a percentage of sales was 24.8% this quarter, compared to 26.7% for the same quarter last year. Our adjusted gross margin was 26.4% this quarter, compared to 28% for the first quarter of 2017, a 160 basis point decrease. Sequentially, gross margins increased 40 basis points and adjusted gross margins increased 60 basis points quarter-over-quarter. Adjusted gross margin excludes approximately $4.3 million of Capitalized interest charged to cost of sales during the quarter, representing approximately 155 basis points consistent with previous quarters. Combined selling, general and administrative expenses for the first quarter were 13.8% of home sales revenue, compared to 16.8% in the prior year. We believe that SG&A will vary quarter-to-quarter based on home sales revenue, and for the full-year, we expect SG&A as a percentage of revenue to be 20 to 50 basis points lower compared to our 2017 full-year results. Selling expenses for the quarter were $22.9 million, or 8.2% of home sales revenue, compared to $16.1 million, or 9.9% of home sales revenues for the first quarter of 2017, which is a 170 basis point decrease. The decrease in selling expenses as a percentage of home sales revenue is due to operating leverage realized related to advertising costs. General and administrative expenses were 5.5% of home sales revenue, compared to 6.9% for the first quarter of 2017, a 140 basis point decrease. The decrease in general administrative expenses as a percentage of home sales revenues reflects operating leverage realized from the higher number of homes closed. Pre-tax income for the quarter was $31.2 million, or a 11.2% of home sales revenue, an increase of 90 basis points over the same quarter in 2017, and this is the strongest first quarter earnings in LGI history and represents an 85% increase in pre-tax income dollars over the same quarter last year. For the first quarter, our effective tax rate of 12.6% is lower than our annual expected effective tax rate, primarily due the result of deductions in excess of compensation costs or windfalls for share-based payments. Excluding the windfall deduction, our effective tax rate would have been approximately 24%, and we would expect that the second through fourth quarter effective tax rate will be between 23.5% and 24.5%. We generated net income in the quarter of $27.3 million, or 9.8% of home sales revenue, which represents earnings per share of $1.23 per basic share and $1.10 per diluted share. Weighted shares outstanding for calculating diluted earnings per share are impacted by our outstanding convertible notes. In the first quarter of 2018, our average stock price was $67.65 exceeding the conversion price and therefore, the convertible notes were determined to be dilutive. This resulted in approximately 2.2 million share increase for the weighted average shares outstanding for the diluted EPS calculation for the quarter. First quarter gross orders were 2,264 and net orders were 1,798. Ending backlog for the first quarter was 1,370 homes, compared to 1,087 last year and the cancellation rate for the first quarter of 2018 was 20.6%. We ended the first quarter with a portfolio of approximately 45,300 owned and controlled lots, up from approximately 39,700 at the end of last year. As of March 31, we had approximately $52 million in cash over $1 billion of real estate inventory and total assets over $1.2 billion. We had $510 million outstanding on our revolving credit facility and our borrowing capacity was approximately $84 million. In addition, we had $70 million in convertible notes outstanding. And as mentioned on last quarter’s call, during the first quarter, we settled $15 million in principal and issued approximately 500,000 shares of our common stock related to these notes. Our gross debt-to-capitalization was approximately 52% and net debt-to-capitalization was approximately 50%. At this point, I’d like to turn back over to Eric.