D.R. Horton Inc (DHI) — Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, Paul, and good morning. Welcome to our call to discuss our financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2024. Before we get started, today's call includes forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although D.R. Horton believes any such statements are based on reasonable assumptions, there is no assurance that actual outcomes will not be materially different. All forward-looking statements are based upon information available to D.R. Horton on the date of this conference call, and D.R. Horton does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Additional information about factors that could lead to material changes in performance is contained in D.R. Horton’s annual report on Form 10-K and its most recent quarterly report on Form-10-Q, both of which are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This morning's earnings release can be found on our website at investor.drhorton.com, and we plan to file our 10-Q early next week. After this call, we will post updated investor and supplementary data presentations to our Investor Relations site on the Presentations section under News and Events for your reference. Now, I will turn the call over to David Auld, our Executive Chairman.

Thank you, Jessica, and good morning. Before we discuss our results, I wanted to take a moment to pay tribute to our Founder, Don Horton, who passed away in May. Don was an incredible man with an unstoppable drive and work ethic that established the foundation and culture of our company. D.R. Horton, the Company would not exist as it does today without Don's tireless pursuit to help as many Americans as possible achieve the dream of home ownership. This simple mission has driven us from the first home that Don built, sold and closed himself more than 45 years ago through the more than 1 million homes our company has provided for families across the country. We are thankful for Don and we and all D.R. Horton employees are beneficiaries of his life's work. Along with our homeowners, customers, contractors, suppliers, land sellers, real estate brokers, and everyone else, Don included, in his family. It is bittersweet to be talking about the company's results publicly for the first time since his passing. Don took great pride in the company's growth, profitability, and shareholder returns, which have been at the top of all public companies in America for the past decade. We will work every day to preserve this legacy and continue to build upon it to improve our operations and the value of our company. We would also like to thank the countless people who contacted us to share their condolences and memories. We received hundreds of messages from employees across the country, and we heard from many industry leaders of other home building companies. Our suppliers, lot developers, bankers, and so many more. On behalf of Don's family and our company, we thank you for the kind words and tributes to a remarkable man. He will be missed. Now I'll turn the call over to Paul Romanowski, our president and CEO.

Thank you, David, for sharing those words and sentiments about Don on behalf of all of us at D.R. Horton. In addition to David and Jessica, I am pleased to also be joined on this call by Mike Murray, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; and Bill Wheat, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. For the third quarter, the D.R. Horton team delivered solid results, highlighted by earnings of $4.10 per diluted share, which was an increase of 5% from the prior year quarter. Our consolidated pre-tax income increased 1% to $1.8 billion on a 2% increase in revenues to $10 billion, with a pre-tax profit margin of 18.1%. During the nine months ended June 30th, we generated $972 million of cash flow from our home building operations and consolidated cash flow of $228 million. Our home building return on inventory for the trailing 12 months ended June 30th was 29.5%, and our return on equity for the same period was 21.5%. Although inflation and mortgage interest rates remain elevated, the supply of both new and existing homes at affordable price points is still limited and the demographics supporting housing demand remain favorable. Homebuyer demand during the spring selling season was good despite continued affordability challenges. With 42,600 homes in inventory and an average selling price of approximately $380,000, we are well positioned to continue consolidating market share. Our average construction cycle times are back to normal and improved from the second quarter, driving additional improvement in our housing inventory turns. We remain focused on enhancing capital efficiency to produce consistent, sustainable returns and to increase our consolidated operating cash flows so that we can return more capital to shareholders through both share repurchases and dividends.

Earnings for the third quarter of fiscal 2024 increased 5% to $4.10 per diluted share compared to $3.90 per share in the prior year quarter. Net income for the quarter is $1.4 billion on consolidated revenues of $10 billion. Our third quarter home sales revenues increased 6% to $9.2 billion on 24,155 homes closed compared to $8.7 billion on 22,985 homes closed in the prior year. Our average closing price for the quarter was $382,200, up 2% sequentially and up 1% from the prior year quarter.

Our net sales orders for the third quarter increased 1% from the prior year to just over 23,000 homes and order value was flat at $8.7 billion. Our cancellation rate for the quarter was 18%, up from 15% sequentially and flat with the prior year quarter. Our average number of active selling communities was up 3% sequentially and up 12% year-over-year. The average price of net sales orders in the third quarter was $378,900, which is flat sequentially and down 1% from the prior year quarter. To address affordability, we are still using incentives such as mortgage rate buy downs, and we have reduced the prices and sizes of our homes where necessary. Although our home sales gross margin improved sequentially this quarter, incentives are elevated and we expect them to remain near these levels assuming similar market conditions and no significant changes in mortgage rates.

Our gross profit margin on home sales revenues in the third quarter was 24%, up 80 basis points sequentially from the March quarter. Our gross margin was better than expected, primarily due to lower incentive costs than in the second quarter. On a per square foot basis, home sales revenues were up 2% and construction costs were down 1% in the quarter, while lot costs increased approximately 2.5%. For the fourth quarter, we expect our home sales gross margin to be similar to the third quarter. Further out, our home sales gross margin will continue to be dependent on the strength of new home demand, changes in mortgage rates, and other market conditions.

In the third quarter, our home building SG&A expenses increased by 12% from last year, and home building SG&A expense as a percentage of revenues was 7.1%, up 40 basis points from the same quarter in the prior year. Fiscal year-to-date, homebuilding SG&A was 7.5% of revenues, up 30 basis points from the same period last year, due primarily to the expansion of our operations, including new markets and an increased community count. We will continue to control our SG&A while ensuring that our platform adequately supports our business.

We started 21,400 homes in the June quarter and ended the quarter with 42,600 homes in inventory, down 3% from a year ago. 26,200 of our homes at June 30th were unsold. 8,800 of our total unsold homes were completed, of which 990 had been completed for more than six months. For homes we closed in the third quarter, our construction cycle times improved slightly from the second quarter, bringing us below our historical average cycle times. Our faster construction and inventory turnover allow us to manage our homes and inventory more efficiently. We plan to maintain a sufficient start pace and homes in inventory to meet demand while remaining focused on improving capital efficiency.

Our home building lot position at June 30th consisted of approximately 630,000 lots, of which, 24% were owned and 76% were controlled through purchase contracts. We remain focused on our relationships with land developers across the country to maximize returns. These relationships allow us to build more homes on lots developed by others. Of the homes we closed this quarter, 64% were on a lot developed by either 4 Star or a third party. Our capital efficient and flexible lot portfolio is a key to our strong competitive position. Our third quarter home building investments in lots, land and development totaled $2.5 billion. Our investments this quarter consisted of $1.4 billion for finished lots, $750 million for land development and $340 million for land acquisition.

In the third quarter, our rental operations generated $64 million of pre-tax income on $414 million of revenues from the sale of 790 single-family rental homes and 610 multifamily rental units. We continue to operate a merchant-built model, in which we construct purpose-built rental communities and sell them to investors. Our rental operations provide synergies to our home building business by enhancing our purchasing scale and providing opportunities for more efficient utilization of trade labor and land parcels. Our rental property inventory at June 30th was $3.1 billion, which consisted of $1.1 billion of single-family rental properties and $2 billion of multifamily rental properties. We expect our total rental inventory to remain around the current level for the next several quarters.

4 Star, our majority-owned residential lot development company, reported revenues of $318 million for the third quarter on 3,255 lots sold with pre-tax income of $52 million. 4 Star's owned and controlled lot position at June 30th was 102,100 lots. 63% of 4 Star's owned lots are under contract with or subject to a right of first offer to D.R. Horton. $270 million of the finished lots we purchased in the third quarter were from 4 Star. 4 Star had approximately $745 million of liquidity at quarter end with a net debt to capital ratio of 18.7%. Our strategic relationship with 4 Star is a vital component of our returns-focused business model for our home building and rental operations. For 4 Star's strong, separately capitalized balance sheet, growing operating platform, and lot supply, position them well to capitalize on the shortage of finished lots in the home building industry and to aggregate significant market share over the next several years.

Financial services earned $91 million in pre-tax income in the third quarter on $242 million of revenues, resulting in a pre-tax profit margin of 37.7%. During the third quarter, essentially all of our mortgage company's loan originations related to homes closed by our home building operations. And our mortgage company handled the financing for 78% of our buyers. FHA and VA loans accounted for 56% of the mortgage company's volume. Borrowers originating loans with DHI Mortgage this quarter had an average FICO score of 725 and an average loan to value ratio of 88%. First-time home buyers represented 57% of the closings handled by a mortgage company this quarter.

Our balanced capital approach focuses on being disciplined, flexible, and opportunistic to sustain an operating platform that produces consistent returns, growth, and cash flow. We have a strong balance sheet with low leverage and significant liquidity which provides us with the ability to adjust to changing market conditions. During the first nine months of the year, our consolidated cash provided by operations was $228 million, and our home building operations provided $972 million of cash. At June 30th, we had $5.8 billion of consolidated liquidity, consisting of $3 billion of cash and $2.8 billion of available capacity on our credit facilities. Debt at the end of the quarter totaled $5.7 billion with $500 million of senior notes maturing in October, which we expect to refinance. Our consolidated leverage at June 30th was 18.8%, and we plan to maintain our leverage around or slightly below 20% over the long term. At June 30th, our stockholders' equity was $24.7 billion, and book value per share was $75.32, up 18% from a year ago. For the trailing 12 months ended June 30th, our return on equity was 21.5% and our consolidated return on assets was 14.8%. During the quarter, we paid cash dividends of $0.30 per share, totaling $99 million. And our board has declared a quarterly dividend at the same level to be paid in August. We repurchased 3 million shares of common stock for $441 million during the quarter. Our fiscal year-to-date stock repurchases through June increased by over 60% from the same period last year to $1.2 billion, which reduced our outstanding share count by 3% from a year ago. Based on our strong financial position and expectation for increased cash flows, our board recently approved a new share repurchase authorization totaling $4 billion.

For the fourth quarter, we currently expect to generate consolidated revenues of $10 billion to $10.4 billion and homes closed by our home building operations to be in the range of 24,000 to 24,500 homes. We expect our home sales gross margin in the fourth quarter to be around 24%, and home-building SG&A as a percentage of revenues to be approximately 7%. We anticipate a financial services pre-tax profit margin of around 35% in the fourth quarter, and we expect our quarterly income tax rate to be approximately 24% to 24.3%. For the full year of fiscal 2024, we now expect to generate consolidated revenues of $36.8 to $37.2 billion and expect homes closed by our home building operations to be in the range of 90,000 to 90,500 homes. We continue to expect to generate approximately $3 billion of cash flow from our home building operations in fiscal 2024. Finally, we now plan to repurchase approximately $1.8 billion of our common stock for the full year in addition to annual dividend payments of around $400 million. We plan to provide guidance for fiscal 2025 in October when we report our fourth quarter earnings and after we have completed our annual budgeting process with our operators. We expect to be positioned to increase our market share further next year. We also expect to generate increased cash flow from operations in fiscal 2025, which we plan to utilize to increase our returns to shareholders through proportionately higher share repurchases and dividends.

In closing, our results and position reflect our experienced teams, industry-leading market share, broad geographic footprint, and focus on affordable product offerings. All of these are key components of our operating platform that sustain our ability to produce consistent returns, growth, and cash flow, while continuing to aggregate market share. We have significant financial flexibility and we plan to maintain our disciplined approach to capital allocation by providing consistently high returns to our shareholders to enhance the long-term value of our company. Thank you to the entire D.R. Horton family of employees, land developers, trade partners, vendors, and real estate agents for your continued efforts and hard work. This concludes our prepared remarks. We will now host questions.

Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is, absorptions were somewhat worse than normal seasonality I would suggest. I know there's been some noise in normal seasonality over the past few years. But margin was 50 basis points above the high end of your outlook at 24%. So I guess the question is, did you guys focus more on profitability per home versus maintaining the sales pace, maybe as rates rose in April? And along those lines, absorptions tend to decline, call it, 15%, maybe a little bit more percent quarter-over-quarter in the fourth quarter. How are you thinking about this kind of the seasonality in the fourth quarter?

Yes, John. We continue to balance price and pace to drive the returns that we're looking for community by community. We saw choppiness through the quarter in demand as you saw fluctuation in interest rates and we responded accordingly. We did maintain incentives, but didn't lean in too hard and I think that's where you saw the result in the overall sales pace, but still feel good about our position, about the backlog we have, and the opportunity to perform on our guidance for the full year.

Got it. Yes, it was a good outcome. And then maybe the next question is in the Southeast, which obviously encompasses Florida and South Central, which has Texas in it. Orders were a little bit lighter than what we were looking for. And I think when we spoke in the quarter, Paul, it seemed that the pickup in existing home inventory in those markets was characterized as more of a normalization than a glut. I think the thought was that the age of the existing housing stock and the price points just weren't that competitive with D.R. Horton's product. How are you thinking about existing home inventory in those two markets specifically today? And did higher inventory negatively impact the orders in the quarter? Thank you.

I think similar to what we've seen last quarter and through today. Yes, inventory continues to increase, not just in Florida, but across the markets. But we still feel good about our competitive advantage, especially in the price points that we operate in and with the incentive package and opportunity with being able to be flexible on rates. And so, I don't think that some of the flatness in sales that you saw across those regions was significantly impacted by increase in inventory, and we still feel good about the demand, just not as vibrant as it was in prior quarters.

Great. Thank you guys.

Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Once again, for me, as I expressed to you all privately, my condolences on Don's passing. I'm really very sorry for your loss, and the industry's too. So that said, John took one of my questions, but I wanted to ask about inter-quarter sales and closings. I think it was over 50% last quarter. I'm curious what it is this quarter. And given that you're back to really normalized cycle times and you've got a good amount of inventory heading into Q4 and into next year. What's your guess sort of long term as to sort of the sales closings inter-quarter level is going to be on a go forward basis?

I think we've seen with the volatile interest rate environment a choppy traffic pattern. When rates move, the traffic patterns are impacted and we saw that through the quarter. I think we ended the quarter with better traffic patterns, better demand and felt that coming into July. What we would also see is that, people are trying to have interest rate certainty when they're buying a home, and so homes that are closer to completion are more attractive because they can get into a better interest rate that we can help them with on our Builder Forward program. And at the same time, that means they're buying a little bit later and so we're seeing a high level of homes sold and closed in the same quarter. We're focused on a start space to drive a closings number and the sales are going to occur between those two things.

Okay. And then one of the elements you guys have talked about in the past, I think it's still in your deck, is this idea of getting your cash in and out of land deals in 24 months. And I'm kind of curious as you're looking at deals going forward here, obviously, we've seen entitlements, lot development times take longer and longer. Is that still realistic to expect that as you underwrite you're going to see that? And maybe what percentage of your current communities right now have hit that goal of getting your cash in and out within 24 months of those transactions? Thanks, all.

Carl, yes, that has been a standard for us on underwriting for several years, and we intend to hold to that. We really aren't looking to own that land until it's shovel ready. So although the entitlement may take longer, we are positioning ourselves in expectation of that time so that we can have properties under contract and/or third party development partners involved to help. And so the more lots that we have, more homes that we're building on lots that were developed by a third-party developer, makes it easier for us to maintain that 24-month cash back. So we don't always hit it. We'd love to say we do. But reality sets in sometimes, but it's absolutely an underwriting standard that we intend to hold on to.

Great. Appreciate it, guys. Thanks.

Thank you very much, everyone. I want to echo Carl's sentiments about Don. He was a wonderful individual, and it has been a true pleasure to work with him over the years. I would like to ask about your cash flow comments, which I found very encouraging for both the remaining quarter of this year and your thoughts for next year. I believe you mentioned that you were looking to increase free cash flow next year and would potentially allocate that more towards share repurchases and dividends. Regarding this, your guidance has generally focused on home building operating cash flow, with rental and 4 Star acting as offsets. Therefore, your consolidated free cash flow has been significantly lower than your home building cash flow. However, you indicated that the rental inventory will remain stable going forward. Does this suggest that your home building operating cash flow will be much closer to your consolidated figure? And when you mention the intention to increase free cash flow, are you referring specifically to home building, or can we interpret that as an overall increase in consolidated free cash flow for next year?

Thanks, Steve. Thanks for asking this question. This helps us clarify this. Yes, we are talking about consolidated cash flow. And going forward into fiscal 2025, we would anticipate any future guidance that we provide on cash flow will be based on a consolidated basis. With our rental inventory now flattening out, stabilizing within a range around the current level, we would anticipate that our consolidated cash flow will be much nearer to the home building cash flow level. There won't be as much of an offset from home building cash flow from rental. 4 Star is consolidated in our financials. We would expect them to continue to use cash flow, but just as a reminder, they're totally separately capitalized, so it really doesn't impact the cash flow we have available to utilize for shareholder returns. But with the sharp improvement in our cycle times this past year, our inventory turns have improved. We expect that improvement to continue into next year. So the efficiency in our home building operation is improving and therefore the cash flow generation from our income should continue to improve. With stabilization and rental, we do expect an increased level of consolidated cash flow next year. And then that's reflected in the increased share repurchase authorization that our board authorized that we'll be utilizing going forward as we expect to see proportionally higher share repurchases and dividends being paid out of that cash flow.

That sounds great, thank you. This leads nicely into my next question about the levels of spec inventory and backlog turnover we can anticipate. Your guidance for the fourth quarter closings suggests a high level of backlog turnover. Can you provide insight into what a comfortable backlog turnover level will be going forward? Will we see levels similar to this year in the future? Additionally, regarding your spec inventory, I understand you have a certain number of specs per community. Can you clarify if the current spec levels are what we should expect in the future, both in total and finished inventory? Also, could you share your target range for finished specs, regular specs, and backlog turnover ratios?

Sure, that was a lot to address, but I'll do my best to answer your questions. Regarding the latter part, there isn't a global expectation for the number of specifications. We operate on a community-by-community basis, so our team adjusts according to the sales environment in each specific community regarding the projects they are starting and how many specifications they plan to maintain based on their sales performance. They can adapt rapidly to the current market conditions, either by slowing down or speeding up, as long as we have the finished lot inventory available to do so. This approach is rooted in a bottom-up perspective. We feel confident about our current position. As mentioned earlier in the call, we are still selling homes later in construction. Buyers are looking for certainty in closing, so we are comfortable with our ability to lock in interest rates for 60 to 90 days. Our completed specifications allow us to achieve much higher backlog conversion rates than we have in the past. We don't emphasize backlog conversion; instead, we prioritize turning our homes and avoid holding too many completed specifications that have remained unsold for a long time. Our main focus is to continue accelerating the turnover of our homes. As long as our completed specifications are not aged for an extended period, we are comfortable with our current levels.

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks very much, guys.

Great. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. And I also wanted to express my condolences on the loss of Don. Obviously, a great leader and visionary for the industry, and he'll be sorely missed. I wanted to start off my first question just on some of the comments you made around, I think earlier you said there was some choppiness during the quarter, obviously, with rates earlier in the quarter being a little higher. At the same time, you talked about incentives maybe being a little less than you expected and that drove the gross margin upside. I was just kind of curious as rates maybe subsided a little bit or came down perhaps to the lower end of their range that we've seen in the last several months, if any of that choppiness has subsided? And it appears that maybe incentives are similar as you see them going into Q4 versus 3Q, but if it's had any impact on either incentives or just more broadly demand trends as those rates have come in a little bit in the last month or so.

Obviously, any pullback in rates, we would call beneficial, and we would expect to have some relief on the incentive front, as incentives are able to be reduced, or at least the cost of the incentive that we're offering. But we are still balancing that with just overall affordability issues in the market today. And we do continue to experience higher lot costs, which is why our guide for Q4 would be a relatively flat gross margin. Because even if we do have the ability to pull back on incentive costs to some extent, we do have cost pressures particularly on the lot side.

Okay. No, that's helpful and makes sense. Also maybe just along this line of questioning, in the prepared remarks you highlighted that you reduced prices and sizes of homes to a degree over, and I don't know if that was specific to the quarter, or just more broadly over the last several quarters. But we'd love to get a little more clarity around that comment, and maybe just more broadly, obviously, we can see the closing ASP and backlog ASP, but just kind of curious, obviously, there's a mix that impacts those numbers. Maybe just give us a sense of percent of homes that you've either lowered or reduced prices, and by how much? By contrast, if there's been a percent of homes or communities that where you've raised prices or sizes and how to think about the ASP for the business going forward into 2025?

Yes, it's a lot there in that question, Mike. So in total, our average house size is down about 2% from a year ago and about flat sequentially. And you're right, that is a mixed reflection of what our operators are choosing to start in a given community and the communities that they're planning to come online. We might be moving to a few more town home communities to try to meet affordability targets for a given sub-market. With regard to pricing increases or price decreases, that's occurring very much week to week at a community level by our operators as they're gauging their market demand, their inventory conditions, and their future lot supply. So we feel really good about those teams making the right decision, and we really don't aggregate up and say we had 14% of the communities make a price increase, 20% a decrease, everybody else was flat, we just don't look at those numbers at a high level here. We tend to look at are we turning our housing inventory and are we driving returns community by community the best we can.

Great, thanks a lot.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to go back to the comment around finished specs. I think you were clear that you were intentionally selling homes later in the construction cycle for a lot of obvious reasons. But obviously the number of finished specs did rise sequentially. Your starts did come down sequentially. I'm trying to understand if there is any kind of signal we should take from that around sort of the state of demand and with finished specs being higher, is there an implication to how we should think about margins going forward to the extent you have to clear some of that with either incentives or price? Thank you.

Yes, Matthew. I think that some of that, what you've seen is an increase in completed specs as we have seen consistent improvement in our cycle times. So those homes are moving through the construction at a faster pace, which means they're reaching completion sooner. So even though we may still be selling those homes later in the construction process, it now allows us to sell them with a closer certainty. So we'll cycle through that. We don't worry a lot about how many of them exactly as a percentage are completed. As Jessica pointed out earlier, it's more focused on are they sitting once they reach completion. So as they age, that tends to be an indicator that we've seen slower absorption or demand community by community. So we're focused on maintaining housing inventory levels that we need in each community. And we're going to moderate that with starts either increase or pullback based on demand, assuming we have lots in front of us that we need to continue the pace that we're looking for. We're very comfortable with the housing inventory that we have. We don't have a buildup of aged inventory and feel good about that going into the fourth quarter.

Got it. Okay, that's very clear, Paul. Thanks for that. Secondly, I noticed you mentioned earlier in the quarter that costs were down sequentially on a per square foot basis. I'm curious about the fourth quarter margin guide of being flat sequentially. Is the expectation that costs will continue to decrease into the next quarter? What specific aspects of construction costs are you able to reduce? Thank you.

I think we're looking for effectively flat stick and brick cost. We've gotten a lot of the tailwind out of the lumber price decreases coming through and I think we're coming to a more consistent level there. The balance of our stick and brick costs, we're probably seeing some pressing for increases, some that we're able to make some progress with in various markets as start have pulled back, people have come looking for work, it may be a little bit sharper pencil coming in trying to get the next neighborhood or the next phase of starts. So we expect some flat stick and brick will probably see an escalation in the lot cost going forward into the fourth quarter. And then, the ultimate margin is going to determine based upon what the concession levels are like in the fourth quarter. And since a significant portion of our closings in the fourth quarter will be sold in that quarter, north of 40%. That will heavily drive the ultimate margin. That's why we felt very comfortable looking at a flat margin environment Q3 to Q4.

All right. Thanks, everyone. Good luck.

Hey guys. Good morning. And I also share my condolences to you and to D.R.’s family on his passing of the quarter. So thank you for all the great info so far. We've heard from some other builders and also just other consumer facing companies about some deterioration, I guess, in the credit quality of the consumer recently over the last handful of months, we've seen savings rates on the decline. You guys have done a fantastic job keeping your price point low when you walk through all the drivers of that, but I'm just curious if you can provide some insight into what you are seeing from the consumer today in terms of their ability to qualify, funds for down payment, credit card debt, etc. Any color there would be great.

Well, with our can rate still being around 18%, we feel very comfortable about the buyers that are making their way into our sales offices and their ability to qualify. A historical cancellation rate for us would be high teens to low 20s. And so we're at the low end actually of a comfortable cancellation rate. On what we closed this quarter, a very strong FICO at 725, I think for the second quarter consistently. The only noticeable difference in terms of the buyers that were ultimately selling and closing to is that their average income has, of course, unfortunately had to continue to rise because of the interest rate environment today. So on a household income basis, we were at roughly, I think it was the first quarter, it rounded up to $100,000. $99.9 is the average household income on the buyers who utilize our mortgage company and closed in a home in the third quarter. And so, that's really the only noticeable difference is that, buyers coming into our sales offices today do have to have higher income to be able to qualify. But in terms of what we're selling and closing, no noticeable deterioration in those credit metrics. Everything has been very stable.

That's great to hear. Appreciate that, Jessica. And second, a really positive commentary on the cash flow and capital allocation. I think that that's going to certainly excite investors. If I look at your last several years, you've been buying back around 3% of your shares each year, or at least reducing your share count by that amount. Some other builders have been a bit higher than that. It certainly sounds like you're looking to take that a bit higher here. Is there a target you could give us just to think about where that can go on an annualized basis, could you be in the kind of mid to high single digit range? I know you have the authorization in place, but it doesn't really give us a lot of insight into kind of what timing you expect to utilize that.

Yes, it does not have an expiration date. Our last authorization was issued in our first quarter, so that one lasted about nine months. Typically, they've been in the 12-month range, but we're not providing specific cash flow or repurchase guidance for 2025 as of yet. As we just commented, we want to go through our budgeting process before we provide that specific guidance. But we do expect that as cash flow does provide a significant increase next year, we will increase our repurchases and dividends proportionately to that. So we do expect it to be a meaningful step up in the level of repurchases. And the reduction in share count will be a function of really where our share price is as well in combination with that because we're allocating and ultimately we will be in the market; we'll repurchase shares that we're able to get with those dollars. But we would expect the reduction in share count to be greater next year than it has been the last few years.

Understood. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Thanks. Two things. First of all, to circle back to the choppiness on demand relative to the movement in rates. I'm just curious how much of the orders now are using a rate buy-down? And I guess I would have thought with the rate buy-down prevalence, there'd be less visibility and influence on consumers as a result of that. Can you just help me understand that a little bit better?

Yes, we actually saw a slight pick-up in the number of buyers getting the permanent rate buy down, which is the vast majority of what we're offering in the market today. Of the buyers that utilize our mortgage company, it was roughly 77%. I think that translates to about 60% of the overall business, give or take. And that was up slightly from the second quarter and it was up more significantly from a year ago.

I think there's a lot of noise in the marketplace when rates were moving, and rates were moving up and that affects I think our perspective buyer behavior as to whether or not they're even going to come into the sales office and talk to us. Once they come into the sales office and they understand what's available to them, they might have had an expectation that I got to make a 7% mortgage rate work in my budget and they come in and we're able to put them in something different at a different monthly payment, it opens our eyes up quite a bit to what's possible. And so, the struggle becomes the traffic patterns. If we get the traffic, we're pretty good at conversion, but sometimes all the headline noise on interest rates can depress the traffic.

And then secondly, if Florida has been an important and successful market, sounds like it continues to be both. Curious if you could just dig a little bit more into for us what's going on there in terms of traffic and price sensitivity and what you're doing or what your communities there are doing in response to that that position of business to continue to grow.

Yes, Florida has been an important market to us and we certainly continue to see in migration. People love to live in Florida, want to be there, but affordability is challenged like it is across the country. And so we've seen significant rise in prices in Florida and across the country, and with interest rates sticking where they have, it's certainly taxing. And that Jessica spoke to, the real change in buyers is they just need to make a little more to afford homes at a static sales price in a higher interest rate environment. And I think that that's really what we're seeing on the impact of sales in Florida, not so much significant change in traffic and/or basic demand or want. It's a matter of continuing to provide the right house at the right affordable price point that reaches as many people as possible, and that's what we continue to strive to do as we position our new communities.

Okay, thank you.

Awesome, thanks so much. So, wanting to touch on your rental business. One of your bigger competitors is looking to do more in the space, but they're also approaching it from perhaps a less capital-intensive standpoint. So first, maybe talk through the implications as more builders enter the rental space or the build-to-rent space, I guess, I should say. But second, are there opportunities to recapitalize this segment longer term, perhaps run it with more third-party capital. It sounds like your rental inventories are right-sized for now, but just curious if there's room down the road to rethink the approach to capital structure here? Thanks.

Yes, as we continue to grow in this business, we're continually looking at ways to not only capitalize but how we want to execute in this space. And I think from a single-family for rent basis, we've become more efficient with the capital and how we produce and sell these communities. And I think that's some of what you're seeing in our moderation of growth in the inventory levels that we expect to see consistency of the investment level that we have out there. And so we still see strong demand. We still see an under supply and an ability to meet the demand of what's out there. So it's going to maintain, we're going to continue to be focused on it ourselves and be as efficient as we can with that capital.

That's helpful. And then, switching gears to community count, it gives us double digits still in Q3, if I'm not mistaken, and it's really been strong throughout 2024. I believe in the past you've indicated you expect that growth to slow, and I know you're not providing guidance, obviously, for 2025, but curious if there's a level of community account growth that you'll need to sustain next year in order to hit those market share gain aspirations. Thanks.

Certainly, Sam. The positive aspect is that even if our growth is below 10%, we're still increasing in size as one of the top 10 builders and gaining market share. We have emphasized in recent quarters that we expect more of our future growth to come from community count, as opposed to the increased absorption that has characterized most of this cycle, except for the early years. To keep growing, we recognize the need for more communities, and we've significantly expanded our market presence over the past few years. We still have a list of additional markets we plan to enter. We're also working on improving our finished lot position to open new communities sooner. However, we anticipate that our community count will stabilize in the next quarter or two, with an increase that may not be in double digits but hopefully within the mid to high single-digit range for a while. Eventually, we might see growth trending towards the lower to mid ranges. As you've pointed out, discussing this topic is challenging due to the many variables involved in launching a new community or wrapping up sales in an existing one. We don't provide specific guidance, but that's our best estimate at this time.

Well, thanks so much. I'll pass it on.

Good morning. Can you talk about what lot costs were in the quarter, maybe mix-adjusted? And then, based on the prices for land that you've been buying and expectations for stronger cash in 2025, should we expect a lot cost inflation to maybe kind of normalize a bit in fiscal 2025? Could it kind of go back down to low single digit or mid-single digit or just any thoughts on those lot cost trends?

Yes, we have continued to see increases in our lot cost and slight increases as a percentage of overall revenue. We don't expect to see that moderate significantly. I don't know whether that settles in at high singles, low double digits, but we do expect that to be a headwind for us. As the reality of the cost to put a lot on the ground, we just haven't seen much relief in that. And so, we expect to see a continued decline.

In terms of the specific, since you asked for that on a per square foot basis, as I said on the call, sequentially we were up about 2.5% on a lot cost basis. Year-over-year we were still up low double digit percentage, which would still have some mixed impact that we've continued to talk to in terms of the South Central and Southeast making up a slightly lower percentage of our closings, and those are generally lower lot cost markets. And to kind of give you another data point, we typically talk about in terms of just the percentage of home sales revenue that our lot cost averages, it generally is in a 20% to 25% range pretty consistently. And we're right in the heart of that range today, even with the increased lot cost we've been experiencing.

Got it. That's very helpful. Could you touch on the health of your land banking pipeline and partners, aside from 4 Star, which is obviously a major source of developed lots for you?

I wouldn't necessarily call it a land banking pipeline. I see it more as a pipeline of lot developers. It's a significant group of experienced land development companies across the country that have had to explore different capital sources. We've been able to assist them in finding these alternative capital sources, especially as many regional and community banks have reduced their lending in this area. However, there are other capital sources that are willing to support developers, particularly those working with companies like D.R. Horton, which has allowed us to keep those developers in business producing lots for us. In fact, 64% of our closings this quarter came from lots developed by other companies apart from D.R. Horton, which aligns well with our business strategy.

Okay, that's very helpful. I'll turn it over.

Thank you. Good morning. My question is just a quick one on 4 Star and just if there's an update on the longer-term plan for what to do with 4 Star or is there a thought to eventually recapitalize that so that 4 Star could eventually be deconsolidated?

Yes, 4 Star is a very important part of our strategy, with them being separately capitalized. They are able to support their growth with their own capital sources. And so, it does not have any offset on the cash available for the parent company and our shareholders. And they're growing their platform. And so, we are working alongside them as they grow their platform. They're now in about 60 markets, I believe, so roughly half of the markets that D.R. Horton is in. So they've still got a lot of opportunities to grow that platform. And so, our focus right now is to continue to work with them as they grow, improve their operations, get as efficient as they can at delivering lots to us and to the industry. And then as they mature, they're raising capital. I would expect them to continue to raise capital over time. And so, as that capital structure ultimately matures, then that will give us the visibility to be able to make the determinations on what we do in terms of our investment. And so, obviously, we made an additional investment to buy majority stake and we have not contributed or needed to contribute any additional capital to 4 Star and don't expect that we will need to going forward. But there will be an opportunity at some point down the line to look at their capitalization when they're at a more mature level.

Got it. Got it. That's helpful. I appreciate that. And quickly on the rental operations, in terms of the current inventory balance, it kind of looks like it's about one-third single-family rental, about two-thirds multifamily. Is that the right mix for how you think the inventory is going to track going forward, or do you think at some point, given the amount of multifamily inventory that's out there right now, do you think it shifts more towards the SFR weighting?

I think near-term, our expectation based on the pipeline that we have of deals is the weighting towards multifamily is probably a little bit higher in the near term, the next few quarters. Over the long term, I would expect that to balance out a little bit more than where it is today as SFR picks back up. But near term, probably a little bit heavier multifamily.

Okay. Is like 50-50 the right optimal balance kind of where you'd like to get it to?

We don't have a set level necessarily. It's whatever the market demand is and whatever we believe the best mix is for returns community by community across our markets.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you, Paul. We appreciate everyone's time on the call today and look forward to speaking with you again to share our fourth quarter results in October. Congratulations to the entire D.R. Horton family on producing a solid third quarter. We are honored to represent you on this call and greatly appreciate all that you do.