Bob Schottenstein
Analyst · Zelman and Associates. Sir, your line is now live. Please proceed
Thank you, Phil. Good afternoon. And thank you all for joining us to review our first quarter results. We had an outstanding first quarter, highlighted by record income, record revenue, record deliveries, record new contracts, and record backlog. However, as we report our results today, we all know that the world is dramatically different now than it was for most of the first quarter. And we are all continue to grapple with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, both in terms of a widespread illness and loss of life that are impacting so many throughout our country, as well as the severe financial effects caused by the substantial shutdown of our economy. This is a time unlike anything we've ever faced. And since early March, our primary concern has been and continues to be the health and well being of our employees, trade partners, customers and their families. We are closely monitoring updates from the CDC, along with guidance from state, local and federal authorities, and continually adapting our operations and business to safeguard our employees, customers and work environment. Today, the vast majority of our employees are operating remotely and all are practising appropriately distancing. At the same time, we're doing everything we can as a company to safely continue selling, building and delivering homes. In order to operate and to continue to operate in the current environment, we are leveraging our existing digital platform and tools and continuing to use creative ways to interact with our customers, as well as our business partners. Homebuilding and mortgage services have been designated as essential in all of our markets with the exception of Detroit. Detroit accounts for slightly less than 5% of our business. So, most of our communities, greater than 95% and our sales and construction efforts therein, remain open for business. That said, where we are open, our operations are constrained. Our sales offices are now open by appointment only. So far, this has been a somewhat effective method of selling. But clearly, our business has been adapted as there has been a marked decline in foot traffic and sales since the last half of March. Having said that, we are encouraged by the fact that in most of our markets, our online traffic particularly since this March, has increased significantly year-over-year. Our success in cultivating online leads and converting them to appointments is a critically important part of our operations and has been for some time. This is something that we give great focus to day-in and day-out. At the beginning of the year, housing conditions were very good as good as we've seen in a long time, and we entered 2020 with tremendous operating momentum. As Phil will discuss shortly, we had record setting sales in both January and February and up until mid March that trend continued. As noted in this morning's release, the COVID-19 pandemic first began to impact our business in the second half of March. Traffic declined and our cancellation rate increased to 28%, resulting in our new contracts being down roughly 50% for the last half of March compared to prior year levels. In recent weeks, we've seen a slight but noticeable improvement in conditions, reflecting the improvement in the so called flattening of the pandemic curve and the early stages of return to work for select businesses in select markets. Specifically, our new contracts for the first three weeks of April have improved, aided by a slight decline in the cancellation rate. Specifically, April month to-date new contrast are roughly 35% below the prior year level. Because of the unknown overall effects of an economic slowdown on homebuyer demand, we have taken a number of measures to extend or delay a significant number of our land purchases and lock take downs across our markets. In a few cases, we've actually terminated contracts. We've also pulled back on our pace of land development to align with our expected needs. We will continue to monitor market conditions and our face of home sales and deliveries, and will adjust our land and related overheads accordingly. In a similar fashion, we also quickly pulled back on starting the construction of new inventory or so called spec homes that are not subject to a purchase contract. We will continue moving forward to be very selective in starting these inventory homes. Overall, it's safe to say that we're managing very carefully, leaning on the extensive experience of our management teams in each of our markets to continue to execute and move forward in these unprecedented times. Now I'll mention just a few highlights of our first quarter results before turning it over to Phil who will describe them in more detail. As I mentioned at the outset, we had many records. We achieved record first quarter revenue of $578 million, an increase of 20% from last year's first quarter, driven by first quarter record level of 1,495 home closings during the quarter. This was 26% better than a year ago. Pretax income for the quarter was 76 better than a year ago, and net income for the quarter increased by 79%. Our diluted earnings per share increased to $1.09 compared to $0.63 per share last year. We have continued to expand our most affordably priced smart series line of homes, which has been very successful for us in achieving both above average pace and above average margin. At the end of the quarter, our smart series homes were offered in 63 of our active communities, or 28% of total M/I communities and that represents all 15 of our markets and aggregates 30% of our total sales before during the first quarter. Company wide, our backlog sales value at the end of the quarter was an all-time record $1.3 billion. Units of backlog were up 23% to a quarterly record 3,265 homes, while the average sale price of backlog was relatively flat, down 1% due to a shift in mix and the impact of our smart series communities. Importantly, our balance sheet and liquidity remain very strong. We ended the quarter with shareholders equity in excess of $1 billion and a very healthy homebuildings debt to capital ratio of 39%, down significantly from 47% at the end of the first quarter a year ago. I will wrap up my comments by expressing my deep appreciation for all our employees and our management teams across our divisions for their perseverance and capabilities in meeting this situation head on and for their dedication and resilience. We entered this crisis in the best shape in company history and as I previously mentioned with significant operating momentum. I have every confidence that we will get through this and emerge as an even stronger and better homebuilding company. With that, I'll turn it over to Phil.