Beazer Homes USA - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Beazer Homes Earnings Conference Call for the fiscal third quarter ended June 30th, 2023. Today's call is being recorded, and a replay will be available on the company's website later today. In addition, presentation slides intended to accompany this call are available within the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.beazer.com. At this point, I will turn the call over to David Goldberg, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

David Goldberg (SVP and CFO)

Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to the Beazer Homes conference call discussing our results for the third quarter of fiscal 2023. Before we begin, you should be aware that during this call, we will be making forward-looking statements. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors described in our SEC filings, which may cause actual results to differ materially from our projections. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date the statement is made. We do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is simply not possible to predict all such factors. Joining me is Allan Merrill, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Today, Allan will discuss highlights from our third quarter, the current environment for new home sales, and an update on our strategy and the goals we have for the future. I'll provide details on the third quarter, expectations for future results, updates on our cycle times and cost reduction initiatives, and end with a look at our balance sheet. We will conclude with a wrap-up by Allan. After our prepared remarks, we will take questions during the time remaining. I will now turn the call over to Allan.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Dave, and thank you for joining us this afternoon. We had a very productive third quarter, highlighted by continued strength in new home orders and further recovery in our construction cycle times. These factors, and the great work of our team, allowed us to exceed the expectations we outlined in April. On new home orders, we generated a pace of 3.2 homes per community per month, up nearly 30% from the prior year. The resurgence in demand we experienced starting in January continued through the spring, with buyers interested in both to-be-built and move-in-ready homes. Closings exceeded our expectations, both from improvements in cycle times and higher-than-anticipated sales of move-in-ready homes. Home building gross margins were also better than anticipated, as we needed fewer incentives to secure our backlog and to make new sales.

Higher closings and gross margins allowed us to generate adjusted EBITDA of nearly $73 million and net income of just under $44 million. From a balance sheet perspective, we celebrated yet another important milestone, with shareholders' equity exceeding $1 billion, or nearly $34 per share. Just over one year ago, mortgage rates began to move sharply higher, pushing mortgage payments as a percentage of income substantially above their long-term average. Predictably, this lack of affordability led to a big drop in new and used home sales that persisted through the end of 2022. During this time period, home prices reversed direction and wage growth continued, which slightly improved the picture. In January, demand returned to more normal levels, even though affordability was still strained. On a macro level, we attribute this strength to two primary factors.

First, there are both long-term and short-term housing deficits. In prior calls, we have noted the structural shortage of housing, potentially as great as 4 million homes. I think of this as a long-term deficit and believe it will underpin demand for new homes for many years. Right now, we're seeing a different deficit, and that's a shortage of used homes listed for sale. While this is likely more of a short-term issue, homeowners may remain reluctant to list their home for sale until interest rates are substantially lower. Second, the overall economy remains quite strong. Unemployment levels remain very low, with job growth and wage gains continuing through the quarter. Over time, one of the most reliable indicators of housing demand has been employment and wage conditions. Both are in a pretty good place right now. We're not just relying on these macro dynamics to address affordability.

As a company, we have positioned ourselves to compete in an affordability-challenged environment. We are invested in markets with demonstrated new home demand. We have targeted the largest homebuyer segments, and we've developed three valuable differentiators: Mortgage Choice, Surprising Performance, and Choice Plans. Taken together, these efforts allow us to deliver extraordinary value at an affordable price to new homebuyers. For shareholders, we remain committed to a long-term strategy we call balanced growth. It is characterized by growing profitability, improving balance sheet efficiency, and generating returns above our cost of capital. We're proud of the progress we've made so far, and we expect to do even more in the years ahead. Last quarter, we provided a roadmap for our longer-term goals, specifically those related to growth, leverage, and the energy efficiency of our homes.

As it relates to our growth, we expect to have more than 200 active communities by the end of 2026, with excellent visibility into year-over-year growth in each quarter for at least the next 18 months. As it relates to our balance sheet, we expect to reduce our net debt to net cap ratio to below 30% over the next three years, a measured pace that will allow us plenty of flexibility to invest in our business. Finally, as it relates to the homes we build, by the end of 2025, we expect that every home we start will meet the Department of Energy's Zero Energy Ready standard. In December of 2020, we became the first, and still today, the only public builder to commit to achieve that standard.

In Q3, 11% of our starts were Zero Energy Ready and included homes in every one of our divisions. Overall, I'm very proud of what we were able to accomplish in the third quarter, and I'm excited about where we're going. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dave.

David Goldberg (SVP and CFO)

Thanks, Allan. For the third quarter of fiscal year 2023, we closed 1,117 new homes, generating home building revenue of $570 million, with an average sales price of about $511,000. Gross margin, excluding amortized interest, impairments, and abandonments, was 23.4%. As Allan mentioned, our margin came in higher than anticipated, which was the result of lower construction costs and better than anticipated profitability on homes we sold and closed during the quarter. SG&A, as a percent of total revenue, was 11.5% for the quarter, down 30 basis points year-over-year, as we benefited from improved leverage. Taken together, higher closings and improved margin led to adjusted EBITDA of $72.8 million. Interest amortized as a percentage of home building revenue was 3.1%.

Our GAAP tax expense was $6.2 million, for an effective tax rate of 12.5%, as we realized approximately $5.7 million of energy efficiency tax credits related to closings in both the current quarter and from prior years. Net income was $43.8 million, or $1.42 per share. Looking forward to the fiscal fourth quarter, we're providing the following expectations: We anticipate our sales pace to be approximately 2.7 homes per community per month, or up about 40% compared to the prior year. Ending active community count is expected to be up about 10% year-over-year. We expect to close roughly 1,200 homes, reflecting a backlog conversion ratio exceeding 60%, up more than eight points versus the same period last year.

Our average sales price should be around $520,000. We expect gross margin, excluding interest, to be roughly 23%. Our absolute dollars spent on SG&A should be relatively flat versus the same quarter last year. We expect this to result in adjusted EBITDA of approximately $75 million. Interest amortized as a percentage of home building revenue should be in the low 3s, and our effective tax rate should be below 14% as we continue to benefit from our energy efficiency tax credits. This should lead to diluted earnings per share to be in the range of $1.25-$1.50. Finally, we expect land spend to be up sequentially and year-over-year.

With our performance in the fiscal third quarter, we now expect to generate more than $250 million of EBITDA and diluted earnings per share in excess of $4.60 for fiscal year 2023. Our book value should top $35 a share, and our net debt to net capitalization is likely to fall below 40%. While we don't plan to provide specific metrics for our fiscal year 2024 expectations until next quarter, we can share some directional visibility at this time. In FY 2024, we expect healthy community count growth to lead to increases in closings, revenue, profitability, and book value per share, even as we anticipate full-year ASPs to be around $500,000 from a more affordable mix of communities.

Relative to our other multi-year goals, we expect improvements in our leverage ratio and a sizable increase in the percentage of our starts that meet the Zero Energy Ready standards. As we enter the final quarter of our fiscal year, I want to update you on the operational objectives we set forth back in October. In prior calls, we've highlighted the improvements we've generated in cycle times on new starts, which has allowed us to consistently push our cutoff date for homes that can close within the fiscal year. In the third quarter, these improvements materialize in the cycle times of our closings, which were down about 40 days versus last quarter. Looking forward, we remain focused on getting cycle times back to where they were before COVID disruptions. On the cost-saving side, it is more of a mixed picture.

While we've been pleased with the reduction in lumber costs, our expectations for significant savings from other categories have been tempered somewhat. That's because the stronger sales and pricing environment has caused housing starts to bounce back this spring. The good news is that some of the most constrained product categories, like appliances and garage doors, are back to normal delivery times, which removes some of the cost risk we faced over the past several years. We have heard from investors that they don't fully understand our tax position, and that's understandable because things like deferred tax assets and energy efficiency tax credits are not intuitive. Today, we're gonna provide a framework that we believe will simplify estimating our future GAAP and cash taxes.

Because the homes we build meet stringent energy efficiency criteria, we are eligible to claim energy efficiency tax credits. These credits reduce our GAAP tax rate in the period they are claimed, even if they are not used from a cash perspective in that year....Today, all of our homes meet the ENERGY STAR standard, and a growing percentage meet the Zero Energy Ready standard. Based on our expectations for claiming credits from prior years, as well as credits earned from homes that closed this year, we expect our effective annual GAAP tax rate to be below 15% in fiscal year 2023. This will rise to somewhere between 15% and 20% moving forward, once we have fully claimed the credits related to prior years.

From a cash perspective, we don't expect to pay cash taxes for fiscal 2023, fiscal 2024, and a portion of fiscal 2025, as we utilize our NOLs, which are included in our deferred tax assets, and then apply the energy efficiency tax credits we have accumulated from prior years, which are also included in our deferred tax assets. As we move into fiscal 2026 and beyond, our cash tax rate should align with our GAAP rate as newly earned energy efficiency tax credits are utilized in the year they are generated. On to the balance sheet. Total liquidity at the end of the quarter was $541 million, comprised of $276 million of unrestricted cash and $265 million available on our fully undrawn revolver.

Our net debt to net cap decreased to 40.3%, and our net debt to LTM adjusted EBITDA was 2.2 times. Our 2025 senior notes represent our nearest maturity, and we anticipate using a combination of repayment and refinancing to address it. While we have no immediate plans to be in the market, we do expect to renew our shelf registration statement in the next couple of weeks. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Allan.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Dave. The third quarter was highly successful on two fronts. Financially, we generated excellent results, driven by a strong sales pace and improvements in backlog conversion. Operationally, we made demonstrable progress toward our multiyear growth, balance sheet, and energy efficiency goals. With a dedicated operating team, a growing community count, and a more efficient and less leveraged balance sheet, we have the team, the land, and the financial resources to create durable value for our stakeholders in the years ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator to take us into Q&A.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer portion of today's call. If you would like to ask a question, please unmute your phone, press star one, and record your name clearly when prompted. If you need to withdraw your question at any time, you may do so by pressing star two. Again, that is star one to ask a question. One moment as we allow time for participants to enter the queue. Our first question comes from the line of Alan Ratner from Zelman & Associates. Please go ahead.

Alan Ratner (Managing Director)

Hey, guys, good afternoon. Congrats on all the great progress this year so far. First question, you know, on the gross margin, and I guess the inputs that go into that. You know, nice upside this quarter. The guidance for 4Q implies kind of flattish, maybe even down a touch, and, you know, that could be rounding. You know, it seems like from your comments, Alan, like, you know, you're, you're pulling back a bit on incentives. You, you might have a little bit of pricing power. The cost environment, you know, seems pretty stable at this point. It could, could certainly reinflate higher again if the trades get, get, stretched.

I guess my question is why, at least for the near-term, wouldn't margins be on a, an upward trajectory, you know, given the flow-through of, I would imagine, lower incentives coming through?

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, I mean, the, the mix of closings in the fourth quarter is going to continue to be heavily weighted toward homes that were sold early in the calendar year. It really, the, the sales activity in the third quarter really won't be in the fourth quarter results to any great extent. It's, it's mix, and it's frankly just a, a little bit of uncertainty, Allan, but I, I think you characterized it as very flattish. But I, I think as we've looked at what's in backlog and, you know, when it was sold, a lot of that, as we pointed out, was sold the end of last year, beginning of this year from a calendar perspective. That's where it falls.

Alan Ratner (Managing Director)

Got it. Okay. I appreciate that. Second, you know, on the community count ramp that you guys expect over the next, you know, handful of years, and I apologize if you've kind of given this detail. When I, when I look at your lot count, you know, it's been fairly steady over the last handful of years, and yet, you know, going from 125 up to 200 communities is, is a very significant ramp. I'm just curious, you know, how much land, how much lot growth do we need to see over, call it, the next 12 months to, to support that, that type of ramp? I guess more broadly, you know, how are you feeling about the land market these days in terms of pricing and availability, et cetera?

David Goldberg (SVP and CFO)

Well, Alan, I would have you look back a little bit. We had a pretty significant growth in the land position, you know, over the last three or four years, which is what's really fueling the growth in community count that you're seeing. You know, we were in the 18,000 lot range, and now we're up, obviously, in the 22,000 lots. It's taken some time to go through LD on those lots, especially during COVID, given some of the disruptions we've had. It's really that increase that you've seen, that's really driving the community count growth that we're going to see in 2024. As to the second part of your question, look, you know, we kind of mentioned during the script that we have good visibility into community count growth for the next 18 months.

As we go forward and as we kind of go quarter to quarter, we'll continue to update what we see from a community count perspective. We have our eyes on getting over 200 by the end of 2026. That's the guidance. We're finding land deals, frankly, that, that pencil and pencil well, for us to go out and grow the community count.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

You know, Alan, I'll just. I'll, I'll add a, a comment on the land market, and it's something I'm, I'm sure you're familiar with, because I know you pay a lot of attention to the private builders. What's happened in the financing market with bank finance has changed the equation a little bit for builders that were, let's just say, project or revolver-based. So there's still plenty of competition for land deals, but there are a group of builders that are a little less, let's just say, expansive than they used to be, and that's been constructive.

Alan Ratner (Managing Director)

Understood. I appreciate that. Dave, just, just to kind of circle back, I appreciate the ramp over the last few years. I guess what I was looking at, just in terms of the numbers, you know, if I go back to, say, 2018, your lot count at that time was pretty similar to where it is today, just in absolute term. You know, you never really got close to 200 communities. I know that number tails off, obviously, so it's probably apples and oranges to some extent, but I think you probably peaked out at somewhere around 160, 170 communities. That's really what I was getting at, like, how much higher does that lot count need to go to, to kind of support, a ramp to 200?

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

You, you should expect our lot count over the next couple of years will get to 30,000 and beyond. In fact, I think we'll, we'll be up in the fourth quarter year-over-year, which is going to put it above 25 this year. That's not a big stretch. Remember, in some of those older periods, or those, long ago days, a lot of that, lot count was land held for future development.

Alan Ratner (Managing Director)

Yep.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Those were some big, chunky assets that they counted as lots. They were lots. They eventually became closings, there were, you know, some 3, 4, 5, 600 lot positions mixed in there that weren't terribly efficient in terms of generating community count.

Alan Ratner (Managing Director)

Understood. Good, good point. Thank you, Allan. Thanks a lot, guys.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Alan.

Operator (participant)

Next, we'll go to the line of Alex Rygiel from B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Alex Rygiel (Senior Managing Director)

Thank you. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Very nice quarter. As it relates to G&A, is there a need to add overhead given the meaningful growth in community count, just so you might lose a little bit of leverage?

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say, Alex, that we're going to lose leverage. I think we're running a little bit higher on the overhead side now because we're planning for the community count growth that we have visibility into. Look, I think we've done a real good job over the last four or five years, really managing the absolute level of, of, of G&A from a dollar perspective. We lost a little bit of leverage kind of this year as we've kind of been thinking about how we're going to grow and getting ready for the community count growth. I don't necessarily think there's negative leverage in the future, but we're probably not at a number today that we would be as we're kind of setting up for, for the community count growth.

Alex Rygiel (Senior Managing Director)

Very helpful. Could you also talk to the higher backlog conversion year-over-year and where this trend could go several quarters out?

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, look, I, I don't want to pontificate or, or, or make estimates on what's going to happen several quarters out, but the real key is, and we've talked about this, Alex, we've picked up about three months of, of cycle time on starts. We're starting to see that flow through on our, on our closings. We talked about getting 40 days back, and clearly, the goal for us is to go out and get 30 days more, and really work our way from there back towards where we were before pre-COVID disruption. That's driving higher conversion rates, right? Because cycle times are coming down, and the idea is to continue to go claw back what we've lost, and, and we've made really good progress on starts, and that should come through on closings over time.

Alex Rygiel (Senior Managing Director)

Super helpful. Thank you very much.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Well, thanks, Alex.

Operator (participant)

Next, we'll go to the line of Jay McCanless from Wedbush. Please go ahead.

Jay McCanless (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon, thanks for taking my questions. Dave, I wanted to follow on what you were saying for, for fiscal 2024, with a $500,000 ASP. I mean, it's not that much different from what you all printed this quarter, but, is it going to be a fast ramp down, or is it something you get to by the end of the year, where maybe you have a poor handle on that price by the end of the year? Is it going to be pretty flat, you think?

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

It, it is a ramp down, Jay. We haven't given specifics about 2024, but it, it is a bit of a ramp down, it, it's just like we said in the prepared remarks, there's some mix in that from a community perspective. As you get some of our more affordable communities coming online as we move through the year, and you get some closings from those communities, you'll see that gradually go down. Jay, just one point. You'll, you'll see in our Q4 guidance that we talked about something like $520, and we're a little concerned that's a mix issue. It relates, as I told the prior question, or answered in the prior question, it relates to homes that were sold six and nine months ago.

We didn't want folks trending off that 520 into next year, so I think it will trend down, but we expect the average for the full year will be right around that 500 level.

Jay McCanless (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, got it. Then could you talk about pricing power during the third quarter? whether percentage or, or areas you were able to take price, any, any color you could give us on that?

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, I mean, I look at incentives and, and between discounts and, you know, closing cost contributions and those kinds of things. I, I think on sales that we were making, which was not very many of the closings that we had, there was the benefit of a couple of points. Now, I, I always get a little nervous talking about this, not because I'm giving away some state secret, but if you change your base price by the dollar amount that you previously provided as an incentive, it's sometimes hard to see that when you look over time, right? You could say, "Well, gee, we didn't give any incentives." Well, yeah, because your base prices were a lot lower.

I, I just caution you, Jay, as you, as you think about that, picking up 2 percentage points on incentives is terrific, and, and I believe it was, but there's also this ongoing dialogue about what are the included features and what is the base price that really best competes in the marketplace. I, I do think it's an area that on the external side is, is not super well understood. There's a lot of, I think, undue confidence in measuring incentives, given the number of moving parts that are both related to price and features. I, I would say there was a little bit of pricing power, not a ton, and we saw it in those different levers. I, I know that's not a super helpful answer.

I'm not trying to be evasive, it's just, it, it doesn't really lend itself to it was three points, it was one point, because there are these other components to that equation.

Jay McCanless (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, got it. Then the last question I had, I guess, when you it was gonna be another incentive question, but I'll ask something different.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

I'm sorry, I wore you out.

Jay McCanless (Equity Research Analyst)

It's all right. No, no. The move higher that we've seen in cash lumber over the last eight or nine weeks, when if this continues, when do you think this will show up in your gross margins, like mid 2024, or when should we expect to see maybe a little headwind from higher lumber in addition to higher everything else?

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, it is sometime in 2024. It's hard for me to say. I mean, we've been pretty effective this spring, having, 90 and 120 day and a couple of 280 day locks, that I'm aware of. We, we have some resiliency. If rates, if lumber moves higher and stays higher, we'll certainly feel that, but we won't feel it for a couple of quarters at this point.

Jay McCanless (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. All right, sounds good. Thanks for taking my question.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Jay.

Operator (participant)

Again, that is star one if you have a question on the phone. Next, we'll go to the line of Julio Romero from Sidoti. Please go ahead.

Julio Romero (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. Hey, good afternoon. Wanted to ask a little bit more about the directional visibility for fiscal 2024. You talked about ASPs being around $500,000 due to the more affordable mix. I was just hoping you could expand on that. Do you expect maybe the geographies to change? Do you expect the maybe smaller homes or lesser amenities? Just anything more you can give us on the mix would be helpful.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Julio, what's happened, and of course, you know this, last fall, last summer, as rates were moving higher, we and everybody else were looking at what are the features that can be removed from homes to help address affordability? What's the right way to approach pricing versus incentives? Many of those effects, for us, didn't really affect our fiscal 2023, because so much of fiscal 2023's closings was carried into the fiscal year from 2022. The very largest component of what you're seeing is the effect of adjustments that we've made in the last year that will have really the that will be in the mix for the full year. That's probably the lion's share. The rest of it is at the edges, changing the plan line up in a community.

If we had a 2,200, a 2,400, a 2,800, and a 3,200 foot plan, we may have eliminated the 3,200 foot plan. That's, that's easy to do. You know, taking a 2,400 foot home and, and downsizing it by 90 sq ft, that's really hard to do. The plan lineup is a, is an area where we got after it. Frankly, we, we do have some townhome communities joining the community count in 2024. Not a hugely higher %, but there will be a slightly higher % of attached product for us, which again, has been part of a multi-year strategy to make sure we stay affordable. Those are the, the, the bigger buckets. Is, is that helpful?

Julio Romero (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

It is. I appreciate that. My second question would be, so one thing that isn't changing is, is obviously your plan to be, net zero energy ready. Do you have a target for maybe the % of starts next year that you're looking to have net zero energy ready?

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Nice try. I don't blame you for asking. It's an upward-- like, I was-- I really, we spent a lot of time looking at that chart. We're gonna get to 100% by the end of fiscal 2025. We will make a significant jump in 2024. I, I want to be a little careful, but, you know, boy, we went from 2% two quarters ago to 11% this quarter. It is going to be a much higher percentage in the, in the coming quarters.

Julio Romero (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

I'll take it. Thanks very much for taking the questions.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah.

Operator (participant)

Our final question showing in queue is from Alex Barron from Housing Research Center. Please go ahead.

Alex Barron (President)

Yeah, thanks, guys. I noticed the $5 million debt repurchase. I was curious, are you constrained as to how much you're able to do? Also, is there any update on thoughts around share buyback, given you're still trading below book value?

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Let's, let's, let's start, Alex, with, with the bonds. There is no limitation. Look, we mentioned in the script, you know, that we expect to be able to 2025 with a combination of refinancing, and, and repayment, but we have the liquidity and the capacity to go pay off the maturity if we wanted to completely. We believe there's- the market conditions are gonna give us an ability to do some of that refinancing, to do the mix that we talked about. What we won't do is really get kind of put in a position where we have to do a financing at a, at a price or at a, at a yield that we're not, that we're not happy with.

we have a lot of flexibility, certainly from a covenant perspective and what we can do perspective, and from a liquidity perspective, really no, no issue there at all. In, in terms of share repurchases, I would tell you right now, given our growth aspirations, it's kind of a low priority for us. It is something that we do think about, and there are times for it, but right now we have aspirations to grow the business, that's the highest risk-adjusted returns for us to go out and invest in land right now.

Alex Barron (President)

Okay. sorry if I missed it, but I think, maybe you mentioned it. Did you guys comment anything on, on guidance, for what kind of closings do you think you'll be able to do for the year or next quarter?

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

We, we gave closings of, of 1,200 closings next quarter, Alex, and then you can kind of sum to the year from there.

Alex Barron (President)

Got it. All right, guys. Thanks, and good luck, and great job. Thank you.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you. Thanks, Alex.

Operator (participant)

We have no further questions at this time.

Allan Merrill (Chairman and CEO)

Okay. I want to thank everybody for joining us on our, our third quarter conference call. We'll be back in a quarter to wrap up the year. We appreciate your interest in Beazer. We will talk soon.

Operator (participant)

Thank you all for participating in today's conference. You may disconnect your line and enjoy the rest of your day.