Eric Lipar
Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open
Thank you, Rachel, and welcome to everyone on this call. We appreciate your continued interest in LGI Homes. Throughout our history, as we have continued to grow, we have maintained the LGI culture, demonstrating that our unique operating model is sustainable. Since our last call, we are proud to announce that our commitment to our processes, consistency and results has earned us a place as the 10th largest residential builder in America. This could not have been accomplished without the hard work and dedication of our outstanding employees. This is a significant milestone for LGI and we thank all of our employees for your commitment and loyalty as we continue our path to becoming a top five national builder. For the second quarter of 2019, we delivered strong results, producing record-setting closings, revenue, average home sales price and community count. This past quarter, we closed 1,944 homes, generating approximately $462 million in home sales revenue, which represented a 10% increase over the second quarter of 2018. For the second quarter, we averaged seven closings per community per month company-wide. Absorption for the quarter was highlighted by our performance in the Sacramento, Jacksonville and Houston markets. Sacramento averaged 13 closings, per community per month, followed by Jacksonville at 10.7 and Houston at 10.4 closings, per community per month. Company-wide, we ended the second quarter, with 93 active communities, in 17 states, roughly an 18% increase, over the 79 active communities that we had at the end of Q2 last year. Breaking it down, let's first look at highlights, from our Central Division operations. Comprised of results from the Houston, San Antonio, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, Oklahoma City and Minneapolis markets, our central operations generated 888 closings in the second quarter, which represented approximately 46% of our total closings. Our absorption rate, for the Central Division, was the strongest across all divisions, averaging 8.9 closings, per community per month. Of the 54% of closings that took place outside the Central Division, a highlight of the second quarter, was an increase in closings in our Southeast Division. This quarter, we closed 360 homes in this division, compared to 298 homes closed in the second quarter of last year. Our Southeast Division also had an increase in community count of seven communities, primarily in Raleigh, with four new communities, resulting from our acquisition of Wynn Homes. August 2, mark the one year anniversary, of the Wynn Homes acquisition, which we believe has been very accretive to our business. Our west division closed 248 homes, compared to 168 in the second quarter last year, primarily driven by the increase of three new active communities, which include the addition of the Sacramento and Las Vegas markets. In our wholesale business, we closed 82 homes this quarter, with three different investment groups, generating $18.4 million in revenues. Throughout the second quarter, we continue to see demand for affordable homes, coupled with community count expansion, and a positive response from buyers to lower interest rates. Second quarter net orders, were 2,248, a 38% increase over the second quarter of last year. On our prior call, we introduced our CompleteHome package. This 2019 initiative, to make our product more consistent on a national basis, includes the most desired new home features, providing greater value to our homebuyers and an affordable price. Customers have responded well to this initiative, evidenced by our 38% increase in orders. During the second quarter, approximately half of our closings included the CompleteHome packages. We expect that, the majority of our third quarter and substantially all of our fourth quarter closings will be the CompleteHome package. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Charles Merdian, our Chief Financial Officer for a more in-depth review, of our financial results.