Meritage Homes - Q3 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Emily Tadano, Vice President, Investor Relations and ESG. Please go ahead, Emily.

Emily Tadano (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Operator. Good morning and welcome to our analyst call to discuss our third quarter 2024 results. We issued the press release yesterday after the market closed. You can find it, along with the slides we'll refer to during this call, on our website at investors.meritagehomes.com or by selecting the Investor Relations link at the bottom of our homepage. Please refer to slide two, cautioning you that our statements during this call, as well as in the earnings release and accompanying slides, contain forward-looking statements. Those and any other projections represent the current opinions of management, which are subject to change at any time, and we assume no obligation to update them. Any forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain.

Our actual results may be materially different than our expectations due to a wide variety of risk factors, which we have identified and listed on this slide, as well as in our earnings release and most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically our 2023 annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent 10-Qs. We have also provided a reconciliation of certain non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our earnings release as compared to their closest related GAAP measures. With us today to discuss our results are Steve Hilton, Executive Chairman, Phillippe Lord, CEO, and Hilla Sferruzza, Executive Vice President and CFO of Meritage Homes. We expect today's call to last about an hour. A replay will be available on our website later today. I'll now turn it over to Mr. Hilton. Steve?

Steve Hilton (Executive Chairman)

Thank you, Emily. Welcome to everyone listening in on our call. I'll start by touching on what we're experiencing in the market today and cover some of our recent company news. Phillippe will share a little more information about the Gulf Coast acquisition we announced this morning and then highlight how our new strategic pivot is reflecting in our quarterly performance. And Hilla will provide a financial overview of the third quarter and forward-looking guidance. Let me kick us off by welcoming our newest board member, Ms. Erin Lantz, to the Meritage family. We look forward to her insights, particularly in technology and financial services. And for anyone that missed our release earlier this month, we also announced our continuation of the declassification process of our board of directors.

We are proud to be able to continue to take on corporate governance initiatives that align with our shareholders, with what our shareholders have told us is most important to them. Now let's turn to our Q3 results. Q3 was another strong quarter for Meritage, where we again demonstrated that our strategy focus on affordable, move-in ready homes is resonating with homebuyers. Our rate buy-downs in July and August and the pullback in mortgage rates in September all contributed to order volume that slightly outpaced traditional seasonality. Our third quarter 2024 orders totaled 3,512 homes, and we achieved an average monthly absorption of 4.1. Our company record backlog conversion of 145% this quarter generated 3,942 home deliveries and home closing revenue of $1.6 billion. Our 60-day closing commitment has gained momentum across all our communities and was the driver behind our increasing backlog conversion rates.

Home closing gross margin for the quarter was 24.8%, which combined with SG&A leverage of 9.9% resulted in diluted EPS of $5.34. As of September 30, 2024, we increased our book value per share 15% year-over-year to $139.02 and generated a return on equity of 17.2%. Now on to slide four for some recent acknowledgment of our corporate citizenship. We received EPA's 2024 Indoor airPLUS Leader Award for the fourth year in a row for building homes that are designed to promote safer, healthier, and more comfortable indoor environments by participating in the Indoor airPLUS program and offering enhanced indoor air quality protections. As a result of our workplace culture and employee engagement, we were honored to earn the Great Place to Work certification for a second consecutive year.

We also made the 2024 Fortune Best Workplaces in Construction list and Best Workplaces for Women list, as well as Arizona's Most Admired Companies for 2024. In August, we published our fourth annual ESG report, which also encompasses our Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. We encourage everyone to read it and learn more about our efforts and progress related to sustainability and social initiatives. And with that, I'll now turn it over to Phillippe.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you, Steve. I'll address our acquisition press release first, as you are guessing that is top of mind for everyone. This morning, we announced we completed our acquisition of the assets of Elliott Homes, a prominent private builder operating in the Gulf Coast. This marks our first acquisition since 2014 and is a great strategic fit for Meritage, given the strength of the Gulf Coast markets in Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle, and the alignment on affordability and product geared toward the first-time homebuyer. We are excited to be working with owner Brandon Elliott and the opportunities we see in this underserved part of the country. With a supply of over 5,500 lots, we expect to generate meaningful volume from this new division in 2025 and beyond.

Now turning to slide five, our sales orders for the third quarter were 3,512 homes, with 92% of the volume coming from entry-level homes. Orders were slightly up 1% year-over-year, with both average community count and absorption pace relatively consistent across both third-quarter periods of 2024 and 2023. This quarter's cancellation rate was 10%, remaining below our historical average in the mid-teens. ASP on orders this quarter of $406,000 was down 6% from prior year due to geographic and product mix shift, as well as increased financing incentive costs. Third quarter 2024 ending community count was 278, compared to 287 at June 30, 2024, and 272 at September 30, 2023. We brought 20 new communities online this quarter, bringing our total year-to-date openings to 90.

While we are expecting to end the quarter with a higher community count, stronger demand than anticipated resulted in some early closeouts, and the timing of some community openings slipped into October. With the Elliott acquisition, we should be comfortably above 300 communities at December 31, 2024, and a further double-digit year-over-year increase by the end of 2025 to help us achieve our 20,000 unit goal in approximately three years. As we are in the final days of October, I can also provide some high-level commentary on what we are seeing so far in Q4. Despite rates remaining volatile, we are seeing demand hold relatively steady, with October's performance falling fairly in line with September.

Moving to the regional level trends of slide six, the central region comprised of our Texas markets had the highest regional average absorption pace of 4.6 per month and an average quarterly backlog conversion rate that has exceeded our minimum target of 125% for the last four quarters. With approximately 35% completed spec inventory in this region, we believe our product and price points will continue to allow us to gain market share. The West region experienced the largest year-over-year growth in average absorption pace to 4.2 per month in Q3 from 3.6 in the third quarter of 2023. We are continuing to see strength in one of our largest markets, Arizona, with attractive product at the right price points. Before I dive into the East region results, I wanted to comment on the recent devastation from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Our hearts go out to those who were impacted by storm damage and power outages in Florida and the Carolinas. We're happy to report that all of our employees are safe and accounted for. While our September closings were not materially affected, we were unable to facilitate sales for several days. In October so far, we have had minor damage to some of our communities, and the power outages and gas shortages early in the month have caused some minor construction delays. We anticipate temporary labor dislocation as trade availability is diverted to hurricane repairs in the interim and some short-term impacted sales as potential customers recover from the hurricane. In the third quarter of 2024, the East region had an average absorption pace of 3.8 net sales per month, in line with traditional seasonality, as the Florida markets are closer to a return to historical levels of resale inventory.

Overall, we do expect markets to return to a more balanced new home versus resale equilibrium in the future, with some of our sub-markets already experiencing increased competition from existing home inventory. It was with this expectation in mind that we embarked on our strategic evolution to bring our homes to a near-completion stage before we start the sales process, so we can meet a similar closing timeline as existing resale. We believe our targeted market segment of entry-level and first move-up homes remains undersupplied even with the increase in resale listings and that our product continues to be attractive. We also have a competitive advantage related to affordability, as unlike existing home sellers, we can offer financing incentives.

We are confident that our strategy allows us to target the largest piece of the potential homebuyer pool by effectively competing against resale inventory, which we believe will help us continue to grow our market share even as existing home inventory reenters the market. Now turning to slide seven, with our high backlog conversion rate, we view our specs and backlog in the aggregate when we look at optimal levels for our targeted closings, as we know about the first four to six weeks of orders will become intra-quarter closings under our new strategy. We believe our approximate 9,000 specs and backlog units at September 30, 2024, are the right level of inventory as we move into the last quarter of the year. We started nearly 3,800 homes in the third quarter of 2024.

Although our starts volume was down 5% year-over-year and 12% sequentially from Q2, our average starts pace was in line with our sales pace and traditional seasonality. We had nearly 6,800 spec homes in inventory as of September 30, 2024, up 38% from about 4,900 specs as of September 30, 2023. This represented 24 specs per community this quarter, with our targeted four to six-month supply as we build up more mature specs to ensure we have the right inventory to meet our 60-day closing ready commitment. Of our home closings this quarter, 97% came from previously started inventory, up from 89% in the prior year. 33% of total specs were completed as of September 30, 2024. The first time since early 1929, we are at our target of one-third move-in ready homes.

With nearly 45% of this quarter closings also sold within the quarter, our ending backlog continues to decline intentionally from about 3,600 as of September 30, 2023, to approximately 2,300 homes as of September 30, 2024. We expect this trend to stabilize once we continually are delivering homes within 60 days in all of our communities. Before I turn it over to Hilla, I do want to address what is likely going to be one of the Q&A topics, which is the volatile mortgage rate environment as mortgage rates have continued to elevate through most of October. Our commentary is the same as it has been since the start of COVID in early 2020. We are an agile organization that quickly interprets market cues and adjusts accordingly.

Our expansion into the top five home builders spot two years ago has allowed us to cost-effectively focus on delivering quick-turning move-in ready homes while generating outside profits and gaining market share. With our commitment to growth, we have been and will continue to offer financial incentives, including rate buy-downs, for as long as they are deemed to be a helpful sales tool, as we look to solve for affordable payments for our buyers and maintain our sales pace. We believe that homes in our target price point are undersupplied in the U.S. and the demand is strong at the right monthly payment.

While we do expect rates to be elevated for the near term, necessitating the continuation of heavier usage of interest rate buy-downs, we also believe that with the influx of millennials and Gen Zers entering the homebuying market, demand will remain consistent and solid. I'll now turn it over to Hilla to walk through our financial results. Hilla.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, Phillippe. Let's turn to slide eight and cover our Q3 results in more detail. We generated $1.6 billion of home closing revenue this quarter, which was a 2% year-over-year decrease, with 8% higher home closing volume being fully offset by a 9% decrease in ASP on closings due to product and geographic mix. Third quarter 2024 closing ASP also reflected higher utilization of financing incentives compared to both prior year and sequentially from Q2. Home closing gross margin of 24.8% decreased 190 basis points in the third quarter of 2024 from 26.7% in the prior year. Our 2024 margins reflected higher lot costs as anticipated, the increased utilization of financing incentives, and slightly lower leverage on fixed costs on lower home closing revenue, all of which were partially offset by lower direct costs and shorter cycle times.

Our cycle times improved about seven days from Q2 to Q3 to around 125 calendar days. We are nearly back to our target of about 120 calendar day cycle time, which would allow us to turn our WIP inventory three times a year. Labor capacity remained consistent during the quarter, but given some temporary disruptions to trade availability related to the aftermath of the hurricanes that Phillippe mentioned, Q4 cycle time may be impacted in certain parts of the country. We have been able to reduce direct costs on a per sq ft basis each quarter since Q1 of last year as a result of dedicated efforts by our purchasing team, our streamlined operations, which allow us to capture volume discounts from our national vendors, and the general increased capacity in most supply chains.

On a year-over-year basis, our margins reflect about 4% lower cost per sq ft this quarter versus 2023. As we have commented on in the past, while still above historical levels, land development cost increases have been stabilizing over the last several quarters. As a reminder, we have already turned over the majority of our communities from pre-COVID land, so the go-forward impact from higher lot costs will be less material in 2025 and beyond. SG&A as a percentage of third quarter 2024 home closing revenue of 9.9% improved from 10.1% in the third quarter of 2023 due primarily to lower performance-based compensation costs. It's important to note that this quarter, total commissions as a percentage of home closing revenue were flat year-over-year again.

Specifically, external commission rates were the same as Q3 2023, despite our higher co-broker participation, as our strategic relationships reduced the need for ad hoc bonuses and incentives. We remain excited and engaged to deepen our relationship with the broker community, which is proving to be a differentiator for us. We expect commissions as a percentage of home closing revenue to remain relatively steady for the rest of the year. For full year 2024, we continue to forecast SG&A guidance of 10% or under. Longer term, we are targeting a 9.5% SG&A percentage of home closing revenue as we grow our existing markets and leverage our overhead platform to reach our 20,000 unit milestone. The financial services profit of $3.1 million included $3 million of write-offs related to rate lock unwind costs in the third quarter of 2024.

The financial services profit of $5.7 million in the third quarter of 2023 had no such write-offs. The third quarter's effective income tax rate was 21.6% this year compared to 22.4% for the third quarter of 2023. Both periods benefited from energy tax credits on qualifying homes under the Inflation Reduction Act. Overall, lower home closing revenue and gross profit led to an 11% year-over-year decrease in the third quarter of 2024 diluted EPS to $5.34 from $5.98 in 2023. Looking at our year-to-date results, we are proud of what we've been able to accomplish in a volatile market and attribute these successes to our scale and strategic focus on delivering affordable, quick move-in ready homes. On a year-over-year basis, orders for the first nine months of 2024 exceeded last year by 10%, or just over 1,000 units.

Closings were up 15% as our backlog conversion hit triple digits in all quarters, and our home closing revenue increased 7% to $4.7 billion. We had an 80 basis points improvement in home closing gross margin to 25.5% from improved cycle times and cost reductions, and our SG&A as a percentage of home closing revenue improved to 9.8%. All in, we exceeded our long-term targets on every metric so far this year, generating a net earnings increase of 14% to $613.5 million, with $16.72 in diluted EPS. Before we move on to the balance sheet, I want to cover our Q3 2024 customers' credit metrics. As expected, our buyer profile remained relatively consistent with our historical averages, with FICO scores in the 730s, DTIs around 41-42, and LTVs still in the mid-80s.

As about 80% of our home closings in Q3 had some sort of financing incentive, that number is consistent with our mortgage company capture rate. On to slide nine. Our capital allocation is focused on both organic growth and shareholder returns to enhance shareholder value. This quarter, we continue to accelerate our investment in the business by spending about $659 million on land acquisition and development, which was up 23% from prior year. On a year-to-date basis, our land spend has totaled $1.7 billion. We are on track for full year 2024 land spend of $2 billion-$2.5 billion and continue to expect our go-forward annual spend to be similar.

As we nearly tripled our quarterly cash dividend on a year-over-year basis to $0.75 per share in 2024 from $0.27 per share in 2023, our cash dividend totaled $27.1 million in the third quarter this year and $81.6 million on a year-to-date basis. We repurchased $30 million of shares in Q3 to catch up on our systematic plan of $15 million per quarter. To date in 2024, we have spent $85.9 million on share buybacks, repurchasing 1.4% of our shares outstanding at December 31st, 2024. $99.1 million remained available under our authorization program at quarter end. Turning to slide 10. Even though the land market has been constrained as public and private builders alike are growing their land portfolio, we were able to secure and put nearly 7,800 net new lots under control this quarter, representing an estimated 48 future communities.

In the third quarter of 2023, we put approximately 5,000 net new lots under control. We continue to find land in our geographies, and although the competition is tight, we are still able to make deals pencil with our underwriting standards, assuming today's ASPs and costs. As Phillippe mentioned earlier, since our Elliott Homes transaction closed in October, those incremental lots are not yet reflected in our numbers. As of September 30, 2024, we owner-controlled a total of about 74,800 lots, equating to a 4.8-year supply, in line with our target of four to five years. We also had nearly 41,600 lots that were still undergoing diligence at the end of the third quarter. While our cash position remains high, we are actively sourcing off-balance sheet land financing to allow us to accelerate growth in our land portfolio without overtaxing our balance sheet.

We continue to view off-balance sheet financing as a vehicle for incremental growth as we work towards our 20,000 unit milestone. To help offset the gross margin headwinds from off-book land, these supplemental communities will deliver additional closings, which will generate improved leverage of fixed costs in both gross margin and SG&A. About 64% of our total lot inventory at September 30, 2024, was owned, and 36% was options, compared to prior year, where we had a 74% owned inventory and a 26% option lot position. We owned 66% and optioned 34% of our lots by June 30, 2024. Before we share our guidance, we would like to take a moment and describe our guidance methodology. Historically, we have had visibility in our backlog to several quarters of closings, so our revenue, margin, and to a great extent EPS were all fairly known.

With our strategic shift, our backlog at any quarter end doesn't reflect even a full quarter's closings. Coupled with our accelerated production timelines and volatility in the interest rates markets that result in a high variability in offered financing incentives, our ability to model margins and EPS on homes that are not yet sold is somewhat limited beyond the current quarter. While we do believe that our strategy of focusing on pace over price will result in our ability to control the volume of desired sales and closings, the mix and profitability associated with such homes is a fairly wide range.

Therefore, starting this quarter, we will continue to provide our regular guidance for the subsequent quarter, including ranges for closing units, revenue, margin, EPS, and tax rates, where we will guide to full year closing units and home closing revenue only to avoid continuous revisions that may cause uncertainty around our financial performance. And with that, I'll direct you to slide 11 for our guidance. As a reminder, under the new strategy, our stronger backlog conversion means that closings are converting to sales in real time, which shifts our quarterly peak closing volume away from Q4. In light of today's market conditions, we're projecting the following for Q4 2024: total closings between 3,750 and 3,950 units, home closing revenue of $1.5-$1.59 billion, home closing gross margin of 22.5%-23.5%, an effective tax rate of about 22.5%, and diluted EPS in the range of $4.10-$4.60.

For full year 2025, we're anticipating closings of 16,500 to 17,500 units and $6.7 billion-$7.1 billion in home closing revenue, both of which include the Elliott Homes acquisition. This implies a double-digit year-over-year growth at the midpoint of our Q4 2024 and full year 2025 guidance. With that, I'll turn it back over to Phillippe.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you, Hilla. To summarize on slide 12, our solid third quarter 2024 financial performance demonstrated that our strategic evolution resulting in quick-turning, move-in ready homes drove strength in our absorption pace and helps us maintain elevated home closing gross margins. Although the mortgage rate market remains choppy short-term, we believe that the expectation of lower rates over the next several quarters and the ongoing combination of favorable demographics and an undersupply of homes will be constructive for home buyer demand and will enable us to keep growing our market share. With that, I will now turn the call over to the operator for instructions on the Q&A. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We're now conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to be placed in the question queue, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. If you'd like to remove your question from the queue, please press Star 2. We ask that you please ask one question and one follow-up, then return to the queue, and that's Star 1 to be placed in the question queue. Our first question today is coming from Stephen Kim from Evercore ISI. Your line is now live.

Stephen Kim (Senior Managing Director)

Yeah, thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate all the color. Yeah, there are a lot of questions here, but I, I'll just basically start with the production side of the equation. I mean, things have really changed over the last year or so. I remember a time when you were, you know, hesitant to think you could do a backlog turn greater than 80%, and now it looks like you're guiding at the high end to maybe even double that, into, in your fourth quarter.

So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what your long-term targets are for, you know, backlog turns, number of specs per community. I think you shared that your, your target, you know, your historical cycle time was 120 days. Wanted to know whether you're anticipating that that could go lower. So just basically to understand how you're thinking about, what the modeling would look like for backlog turns and, your spec levels and how you're going to run your business going forward.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Yeah, thanks, Stephen. Appreciate the questions. I would say that the earlier long-term targets we put out recently this year, we targeted sort of 125% backlog conversion. But obviously, we also indicated to you that we were going to study our business during that time, specifically under the shift to holding homes later in the sale process to do a 60-day move-in guarantee for our customers. With that change, we have been operating closer to 145% over the last few quarters. So we're still evaluating this, but I think where we are is probably where we're going to end up. So we're targeting something north of 125% at this point. Obviously, that can be impacted by cycle times. Our cycle times are almost where we would like them to be, where we're turning our assets three times a year. We're at about 125 days.

We think we can get that down a little bit more, which will be helpful and help us get to that 145% backlog conversion number. And then finally, the number of specs per community. Again, we feel like we're pretty much there. We want four to six months of spec inventory, considering we're converting 145% of our backlog. So we should be converting a third of those per quarter every single time and restarting those. So we always like to have a third of our specs move-in ready, a third of our specs right behind that, and then another third of our specs right behind that.

I think we're pretty much there. If our cycle times can continue to improve and stabilize, we obviously can carry less specs because the cycle times allows us to do so. But I would say this quarter is pretty much within the range of where we're going to be, as we think about our long-term targets on a go-forward basis.

Stephen Kim (Senior Managing Director)

Okay. When you mean this quarter, Phillippe, you mean three Q or you mean four Q?

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Q3.

Stephen Kim (Senior Managing Director)

Gotcha. Okay.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Our Q3 results. Now, as you look at our Q4 guidance, we're guiding to something relatively similar.

Stephen Kim (Senior Managing Director)

Except for your backlog turns going to be a lot higher, but I heard you on the 145% kind of on an annualized kind of a run rate. So that's great. Okay. Second question. I mean, I know there's going to be a lot of questions about the market conditions and all that. I'll let others, you know, ask those, and I'll be listening to that eagerly as well.

But I wanted to ask you about the acquisition of Elliott and, in particular, your approach to land. So the first thing, Hilla, could you provide us, you know, some more, the necessary color we need for modeling around Elliott, you know, give us a sense for, you know, the closings, you know, the backlog, sorry, the backlog you may have acquired, purchase accounting, you know, things of that nature. And then to round out kind of the land, you, you, I think you had hinted in the past about maybe working on some kind of a different land structure or, or, or something like that, but I was curious if you had any update there or if your thinking had evolved there.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. So thank you, Stephen. So just a little bit of color on Elliott. We did not acquire any WIP. So we will have no purchase price adjustments for the material write-down that you have in WIP. We are going to be starting units in Q4. I know we're in Q4, so we're going to be starting units shortly. We expect to benefit from those closings towards the end of Q1, so you will start to see the performance of the assets that we acquired. They will all be newly started assets and no acquired WIP. All-in margins on the acquired assets should be coming in at or north of our current margin. We were able to strike a win-win deal with the Elliott team, and the net impact is going to be margin accretive, not diluted, which is a little bit unusual for land transactions.

And you should start to see, again, you know, we, we look to carry a four- to five-year supply of lots. There's maybe a little bit of a longer tail here, so I wouldn't take the 5,500 lots and divide it by five and say that's the annual run rate. But it's going to be something a little bit south of that, but not materially south of that. So that's our long-term trend for the Gulf Coast, the new Gulf Coast division. As far as our off-balance sheet land, you know, we keep promising that we'll discuss it. It's something that's going to be finalized here internally in the next two to three days. So you should be hearing from us about the off-balance sheet structure, something fairly material we will be disclosing on our January earnings call.

Stephen Kim (Senior Managing Director)

But it's going to be finalized in the next few days, so meaning it won't go into effect until 1Q, or will it actually go into effect in 4Q? We just won't know about it until January.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, it'll go into effect in 4Q. It'll be part of our 4Q numbers. It's going to be an incremental growth, so it's not something that's going to happen on day one. So, the start of the relationship will begin in Q4. You will see evidence of it in our Q4 numbers, and then it'll grow beyond that.

Stephen Kim (Senior Managing Director)

Gotcha. Okay. Great. Well, looking forward to hearing more about that and thanks very much for all the color, guys.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Thank you.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next question today is coming from Alan Ratner from Zelman & Associates. Line is now live.

Alan Ratner (Managing Director)

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for all the detail and, nice job in the quarter. First question on gross margin. You know, you guys have been pretty transparent about your expectation for margins to, you know, kind of normalize closer to 22.5%-23.5%. And it looks like, based on your 4Q guide, that you expect to get within that range this upcoming quarter. At the same time, I know there's a lot of moving pieces on a quarterly basis. I know there's some fixed costs associated with your COGS. I know, you know, incentives obviously play a pretty big part in that as well. So I'm just curious if you can kind of parse through the guide for, you know, roughly 200 basis points of sequential pressure on margin.

How much of that is higher incentive levels? How much of that is mix? And, you know, should we anticipate if incentives remain elevated? Is there a possibility, at least in the near term, you might dip a little bit below that normalized range?

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

So thanks for the question, Alan. I think when we guided, a couple quarters ago to what we thought the long-term range was going to be, I don't think anticipated quite the level of heavy incentives that we're seeing right now. I think the incentive volume, as you've heard from several of our peers that have also released results already, it's been a little bit heavier than expected. Interest rates did the opposite of what people expected after the Fed announcement.

So our numbers for Q4 reflect a higher expectation for incentives even than what we're seeing, even than what we saw in our Q3 results, which is the lion's share of the pullback. The material decline from the current quarter to the next quarter is all anticipated increased utilization of incentives. I think we're all waiting with bated breath to see when the rates will come down and there'll be a positive impact. So I don't know that we're forecasting another further pullback in incentives. I think as we head into the spring selling season, hopefully, the tides will turn and head in the other direction. So our long-term margin, I don't think, is at risk of coming in lower. I'm not sure we're anticipating currently for quarters to fall in below that.

But again, we'll be actively monitoring the interest rate markets and adjusting accordingly. I think we've said this several times, but what's happening in the markets today is just manifesting itself in our financial statements quicker than some of our peers because of our quick backlog conversion. So what we've been alluding to and seeing in our sales volume that's coming through our P&L, I think our peers are seeing it a couple quarters later, but it's a general industry trend.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question today is coming from Michael Rehaut from J.P. Morgan. Your line is now live.

Michael Rehaut (Executive Director)

Hi, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Wanted to delve in, you know, I think you kind of already alluded to this, Hilla, but around the cadence of incentives throughout the quarter. It sounds like it ended at a high note, and that's what you're further projecting into the fourth quarter. I was hoping if you could just remind us where incentives are as a % of sales price, and how that compares to, you know, normal levels, let's say pre-COVID.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, they're definitely running north of pre-COVID. Pre-COVID, it was anywhere between 3% and 6%, depending on the nature of the market. Right now, they're running a couple hundred basis points above that. So there's definitely increased incentives today from a normal market, which is why we're comfortable that on a long-term basis, our gross margin targets are still correct because we do expect a pullback in the utilization of financing incentives long-term.

We're not modeling that right now. The current dynamics in the interest rate environment don't allow us to model that, although, we're hopeful that'll happen sometime in 2025. So the guidance that you're seeing from us is at the current exit, interest rate utilization, not even so much as of September 30, but currently, right? We're at the end of October and we have a whole month's worth of sales, a lot of which will close in this quarter. So we have fairly good visibility as to what the current interest rate environments are requiring us to offer.

Michael Rehaut (Executive Director)

Okay. No, that's helpful. I guess secondly, we'd love to get your thoughts around, you know, from a market perspective and certainly as it relates to you guys as a company as well. Just the availability of finished lots, you know, it came up yesterday on a competitor call that, you know, perhaps on some levels across markets, you know, supply challenges are becoming a little more pronounced. Obviously, you just did the deal with Elliott, and that gives you access to a good amount of lots in a new area, but bigger picture, you know, how would you characterize, given particularly, you know, the emergence of maybe some additional land banking venues and partners, how would you characterize the availability of finished lots in this, you know, across your footprint? Has it gone up or down over the last couple of years? You know, I'll stop there.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you for the question. Yeah, I mean, it's gone down over the last decade. I mean, so we haven't seen finished lots for 10 years. We self-develop almost 90% of everything we do. The 10% of what we get that's finished is usually opportunistic in some way, and we've been doing that for some time. And we certainly don't see the pattern changing anytime soon. If not, it's only increasing. I think the finished lots that are available in the market are often heavily bid on, and you often have to pay a price that really doesn't hurdle. So, because if a developer goes out there and puts the lots on the ground, they're expecting retail plus, plus, plus.

So I would say the availability of finished lots is few and far between, except within M&A. Obviously, a lot of M&A is happening out there on private builders because they actually have finished lot inventory that you can get on today. Elliott Homes certainly has some of those that's available to us. So I would characterize the availability of finished lots as scarce beyond scarce. And I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Just, just to clarify, that's always been our expectation, right? Our four- to five-year supply of lots assumes it's going to take us a year to two for development and then three-ish years to sell through the community. So I don't know that it's any different for us than what we've been modeling, as Phillippe said, for the last decade. One last quick one, if I could squeeze it in.

Michael Rehaut (Executive Director)

Hilla, you mentioned that, Elliott, you know, take the 5,500 divided by five, maybe it's a little south of that, but, you know, let's say that that's closer to like a thousand lots or closings rather that could add to your 25 number. That's a 7% growth roughly off of, you know, your 24. I think even before that, we were kind of looking for 10%-ish type volume growth. So should we just be adding that to the normal 10%? And, you know, I mean, is it out of bounds to think that you could be doing a 15% plus closings growth next year?

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, I'm not sure that we're guiding to 15% closing growth. We gave our guidance that includes the Elliott numbers. That 5,500 lot is a long-term run rate. So I'm not intimating that we're going to be in the thousand-unit range in year one. The numbers that we have are inclusive of the Elliott transaction. Their component of that is not four digits. So I think that the growth that you're seeing is primarily organic at that midpoint, that 17,000 units; it's primarily organic.

Michael Rehaut (Executive Director)

Okay. Great. Thanks so much.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Thank you. Next question today is coming from Trevor Allinson from Wolfe Research. His line is now live.

Trevor Allinson (Director and Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Wanted to follow up on the 4Q margin guide. If we look back over the past several years, you've consistently outperformed the top end of your margin guidance range. I think that was true in 3Q as well. And then, as you alluded to, 4Q assumes a notable step down here sequentially. Can you talk about the degree of conservatism that's built into that guide? And then what would you need to see happen for the bottom end of your 4Q guidance range to come into play?

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Yeah. So I think as you look at the past, you know, eight quarters where you have identified that we've outperformed, a lot of that was predicated on the fact that our business was shifting dramatically. We were going from 1MU to entry-level builder, and then from entry-level to all spec, and from all spec to move-in ready. And so we just didn't have complete visibility and confidence in all the transition that was happening and how quickly it was happening. So we were guiding conservatively based on that. Now, as you look at the last quarter in our guidance, we indicated to everybody that our margins were going to be down, and we slightly outperformed, but a lot of that just came in the form of a higher backlog conversion and a little bit less of utilization of rate locks.

So I think we're getting much tighter. And I would say, as we sit here in October, we don't think there's a lot of conservatism in our 4Q guide. That being said, I think rates would have to go higher than they currently are for us to perform below that midpoint, which I currently don't feel like they're doing. We have another, maybe two or three weeks of sales that will close in Q4. And as we look out and see what sales we're procuring today, we don't see our financing costs going up. So I feel confident in our midpoint for Q4.

Trevor Allinson (Director and Research Analyst)

Okay. Gotcha. Makes sense. And then my second question is, somewhat related to that elasticity to rate movements. Can you talk about in the third quarter how demand responded when you did see rates decline pretty quickly in the second half of that quarter? And then, you know, others have talked about non-rate impacts to current demand conditions, you know, things like the election. What is your expectation for demand in the spring if we don't get a move lower in rates? They could stay pretty consistent to where they're at, but we have some of the other noise, such as the election, behind us? Thanks.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Yeah. Thanks again, Trevor. So much like we said in the previous guidance, we felt like the back half of this year was going to be a more difficult sales environment because of the election, because of what rates were going to potentially do, because of, for the first time in many years, we experienced true seasonality, and all of that has materialized. I think the only thing that has become more material has just been what rates have done after the Fed cut. The sales environment is extremely elastic to rates. If you look at our third quarter orders, September was our best month in a meaningful way because rates came down after the rate cut, and we saw increased demand environment. As rates have elevated through October, we've seen the demand moderate from September, so it is very, very, very elastic.

That being said, we're guiding to 17,000 units next year, which is significant growth over where we currently sit. We're assuming four net sales per month to do there based on our community count growth. So we're extremely confident about the demand environment. We think there are a lot of folks out there that want to buy a home. What we lack confidence in is just exactly what the cost of that demand is going to be in the form of financing and incentives.

Trevor Allinson (Director and Research Analyst)

Yeah. Makes sense. Appreciate all the color and good luck moving forward.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is coming from John Lovallo from UBS. Your line is now live.

John Lovallo (President)

Hi, good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my questions as well. The first one is just, Phillippe, just to follow up on one of the last comments you made. I thought earlier in the presentation, you guys may have indicated that October was similar to September from an order standpoint. September seemed like it was pretty good. So, I mean, is the order pace relatively consistent just at a higher incentive level, or, you know, what's kind of the right way to think about the pace that you're seeing so far in September?

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Yeah, you're thinking about it the right way, which is why we're guiding to our fourth quarter margins. The demand is there. We feel very confident that we're able to go secure the pace, and we are a pace-driven business. So we feel confident we can go get our four per month or so at the margins that we guided to because we have the financing incentives to go get there. So the demand environment remains extremely constructive. It's the financing and incentive environment that is continuing to be volatile and just the cost and the expectation of consumers as it relates to incentive and financing to procure the sale.

John Lovallo (President)

Makes sense. And then, you know, I think you answered this, but I just want to make sure that I'm understanding it correctly. You guys maintain the sort of the long-term trend margin outlook. And so does that imply that if rates, in fact, do come down, and who knows if they do, and when they do, but that you would take the, you know, the foot off the gas on the incentives and capture more margin? Is that the right way to think about that?

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

100%. As long as we're getting our pace, right? And so there's a lot of things that move around in margins. It's not just financing, especially as you start to look out in future quarters. We have newer vintage land coming on, etc., etc. So our long-term targets are based on our long-term underwriting, the efficiencies that we've been able to create in our new operating model, our backlog conversion, our leverage, etc. But, what can obviously move the needle positively or negatively on that is the incentive environment. You know, it's not just, solving the payment for the customer, but it's also what our competitors are doing in the environment.

So if rates go down, that would, I think, provide potentially a tailwind for margins. If rates stay high and even go higher, that could potentially present a headwind. Now, there are a lot of other things we can do to preserve margin in that environment. We can navigate our cost structure a little bit differently. We can do things with pricing, etc. So I don't want to say that, you know, we're completely vulnerable to this, but yeah, you know, rates, lower rates provide a tailwind, higher rates provide a headwind.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Phillippe mentioned it correctly. I don't think that we're guiding to, I don't think that we should be modeling once we have a couple more Fed announcements of rate cuts that the margins are going to increase. That's also going to increase the availability of resale inventory, which will impact the ability to push pricing. So there's forces in both directions. I think we're fairly comfortable with our long-term margin guidance at this time. Doesn't mean that we're not going to be a little bit above, a little bit below, all around, all around that based on what's happening quarter to quarter, but I think we're comfortable long-term with that market, that with that, margin range.

John Lovallo (President)

Yep. Understood. Thank you, guys.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question today is coming from Carl Reichardt from BTIG. Your line is now live.

Carl Reichardt (Managing Director and Partner)

Thanks, everybody. I wanted to ask a little bit about Elliott to sort of broad, more broadly. So the 20,000 unit goal you've got within three years, I mean, you'll be 17 next year at the midpoint. Does that presume any additional acquisitions? My thinking has been now that you've got the actual production model really dialed in, are you thinking more about trying to gain share within the markets you already are or entering new since Elliott is really a very new and different market for you? Is it really an opportunistic deal, Phillippe, or is this something that we could say sets a new direction for you for new geographies or doing more acquisitions to help get to that 20,000 unit goal?

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Yeah. Actually, Elliott was a very strategic deal for us. We've been looking at these markets for a while. They fit in nicely with our overall strategy to provide affordable housing. These markets are benefiting from a lack of affordability regionally in the states that are around here. They still provide a great quality of life.

They are attractive to first-time home buyers, move down and first move up, and the economies are actually really, really strong. So we've been thinking about getting into these markets organically or through M&A. Elliott Homes was a great opportunity for us to partner with a great gentleman who has built a phenomenal franchise in those markets so that we could go more quickly and scale from there. So it was very much a strategic fit. As I said before, Plan A is always to increase our market share organically in the markets we are. We are a top five builder across most of our markets. We think as a first-time entry-level spec builder, we should be a top three builder. As we think about where we can be a top three builder, we can easily get to 20,000 units through that growth.

But we also have a number of markets that we have identified as strategic fits to our operating strategy and to our consumer segment strategy that we are looking at organically going into or acquiring a builder that would allow us to strategically enter that market at the right price. So it's, it's always been both of those, and we're going to deploy our capital appropriately as long as it's a good return to shareholder value. And, you know, we'll go from there. That being said, we don't have anything currently out there from an M&A standpoint that is actionable. We're looking at things, but we have a lot of growth planned organically for our existing markets.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

When we guided in June to 20,000 units on our investor calls, it was assuming all organic. So anything that we're doing now is incremental.

Carl Reichardt (Managing Director and Partner)

All right. Thanks, Hilla. And then just one thing. I think you said about $2.5 billion in spend or matched spend in 2025 on land and development versus 2024. Is your split between new land versus development likely to be similar to what it was in 2024 too?

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

On a go-forward basis, yeah, probably a little bit heavier on land development. We've spent a lot of dollars acquiring land, as Phillippe mentioned, about 90% of everything we acquire, we self-develop. So there's quite a bit of dollars going out the door on development. I think that the relative ratio between development and acquisition in 2024 is fairly consistent on a go-forward basis.

Carl Reichardt (Managing Director and Partner)

All right. I appreciate it. Thanks, Hilla. Thanks, Phillippe.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question today is coming from Susan Maklari from Goldman Sachs. Her line is now live.

Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My first question is on sticks and bricks costs. We've seen lumber inflate in the last several weeks or just wood products in general, actually. Can you talk a bit about what you're seeing there, thoughts on the potential that that path continues for that input cost? And then how does this strategy allow you to effectively price the homes as we do perhaps get some volatility in some of these core commodities?

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. So you're right. Lumber has ticked up a bit over the last couple of weeks, although on the whole, the composite of all of our directs is kind of doing exactly what we see in a normal market. Some things go up, some things go down. On average, there's maybe a little bit of a tick up, but it kind of corresponds with what we're seeing on the ASP side. So net-net, there's not a material drag from direct costs. You know, with labor stabilizing, we're kind of seeing everything hold, holding relatively within the bounds of what we would consider a normal environment. So we're not seeing anything super outsized on the lumber markets, although they have ticked up a bit. But overall, everything is still fairly in line. The volatility in the cost, like we said, we are a quick-turn builder, right?

So you are going to see anything that's happening in the market displaying itself in our results fairly quickly. But with costs stabilizing and supply chains kind of returning back to normal levels, we're not seeing the variability in that today. We do have lumber locks that secure, you know, the most volatile and biggest individual component of the home. So we do have some straight lining there, but for the most part, we're not seeing tremendous movement like we had in direct costs, you know, the last maybe three or four years.

Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. That's helpful color. And then maybe turning to capital allocation. You know, you mentioned that you did buy back stock as you're trying to catch up a bit from earlier in the year. Just any thoughts here on how you're thinking about the shareholder return component of the business as we think about 2025 and the strategy coming into full effect?

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

I don't think we have any guidance yet on capital allocations for 2025 and targets for shareholder return. We can definitely share those on our Q4 earnings call.

Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you. Good luck with everything.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question today is coming from Alex Barron from Housing Research Center. Your line is now live.

Alex Barron (President)

Yeah. Thanks, guys. And great job on the quarter. I wanted to ask about Elliott just to understand. So these existing communities, whatever homes are underway, under construction and backlog, basically those are going to the previous owners are keeping and finishing those out, and anything new is going to accrue to your benefit. Is that how it's going to play out?

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Yeah. But the only nuance is their existing communities, we're buying the remaining lots within the existing communities and we'll start our homes on those. But anything that is under construction in the existing communities, models, and sold with the Elliott team will be keeping and securing the profits from those. So we're only buying the land and starting homes on the go-forward land, including inside existing communities.

Alex Barron (President)

Okay. But I'm saying you guys are keeping all the team, right? Like every salesperson and builders and all that stuff is now working for you.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Yeah. We don't have an operations in the Gulf Coast. So the Elliott team is joining our team, and we look forward to building a great company down there.

Alex Barron (President)

Okay. Now, I was briefly looking at their website, and it looks like their price points are pretty low. I mean, some homes are even as low as $170,000. Are you guys planning on, you know, continuing along those same price points? And if so, what's allowing that? Is the land just cheaper in those markets and in other markets?

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Yeah. We love it. The lower, the better, more affordability for the folks. So, as we currently sit here today, we plan to continue operating in the price points and the sub-markets that they're in. And to answer your question, they had some of the best margins we've ever seen from a private builder. So they've executed a very profitable business, there. And the land you can get on the ground, to achieve that affordability. You know, some of the low, low stuff is kind of some unique stuff that they were building. We're probably not going to continue too much with that. But their core operating model is a 30 and 40 wide product, and it's in the high twos, low threes. And we intend to build our franchise around that.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. We're going to be building a lot of their products. So we're going to be maintaining the fantastic product offering that they have down there. So you should expect to see that. And as Phillippe alluded to, lot cost is significantly less expensive in these markets, which is what allows the lower price points but actually improved profitability.

Alex Barron (President)

Got it. Well, best of luck, guys. Thanks.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you.

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is coming from Jay McCanless from Wedbush Securities. Your line is now live.

Jay McCanless (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey. Thanks for taking my questions. Actually, Alex stole most of the ones I had on Elliott. But did want to ask, we've heard several of your competitors talk about the cost of these mortgage rates, by mortgage rate buy-downs increasing. And wanted to ask if that ratio of 25 basis points of mortgage rate, you know, nominal rate, is still costing about 100 basis points of gross margin, or is that ratio increased now with some of the rate volatility we're seeing?

Hilla Sferruzza (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. We have a slightly different structure on our rate lock, so I'm not sure that there's any rule of thumb that you can use for that. The costs are staying elevated, although we've changed our offerings a little bit. So the per home amount is not materially different, but the utilization, how many folks are using them and needing the rate lock, or shouldn't even say needing, I would, I should say wanting the rate lock due to psychological fear about buying at a certain time in the market, that percentage is increasing.

Jay McCanless (Equity Research Analyst)

And then the other question I had, and I jumped on a bit late, so I apologize, but how many communities is Elliott anticipated to add? And did you give any guidance for fiscal 2025 community count growth?

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Yeah. We did guide that we would finish comfortably over 300 to end this year, including the Elliott Homes acquisition. We also guided to double-digit growth for next year over that number. So that's what we provided in our release. And then we're still evaluating exactly how many on a go-forward communities we're going to have with Elliott Homes. We want to make sure we understand not only which ones are going to be active, but how long they're going to be active before we give a final count on that. And we'll be prepared to do that in our next release.

Jay McCanless (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you. Thank you. I think, operator, that was the last question, correct?

Operator (participant)

It sure was. Over to you for any further closing comments.

Phillippe Lord (CEO)

Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone who joined this call today for your continued interest in Meritage Homes. We hope you have a great rest of your day and a great rest of the week. And, go Dodgers.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may.