Thank you for standing by. My name is Eric, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Green Brick Partners, Inc. Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Rick Costello, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Green Brick Partners' earnings call for the third quarter ended September 30, 2023. Following today's remarks, we will hold a Q&A answer. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and will be available for playback. In addition, a presentation will accompany today's webcast and is also available on the company's website at investors.greenbrickpartners.com. Joining us on the call today is Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer; Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Rick Costello, Chief Financial Officer. Some of the information discussed on this call is forward-looking, including the company's financial and operational expectations for 2023 and beyond. In yesterday's press release and SEC filings, the company detailed material risks that may cause its future results to differ from its expectations. The company's statements are as of today, November 1, 2023, and the company has no obligation to update any forward-looking statements it may make. The comments also include non-GAAP financial metrics. The reconciliation of these metrics and the other information required by Regulation G can be found in the earnings release that the company issued yesterday and in the presentation available on the company's website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jim Brickman. Jim?

Thank you. Before we start, I would like to congratulate Jed Dolson on his promotion to President and Chief Operating Officer of Green Brick. Jed has been an integral part of our leadership team for almost 14 years and has consistently demonstrated exceptional leadership and a deep commitment to the company's mission and value. Jed has and will continue to play a critical role in driving the company's success. Now moving on to our performance. I am extremely pleased to report another exceptional quarter for Green Brick's financial and operating performance. Led by our industry-leading percentage increase of net new sales orders and record gross margins, we continued to defy the pressure on housing affordability and sales velocity created by the elevated level of mortgage rates during 3Q. Our performance continue to lead the homebuilding industry, highlighted by homebuilding gross margins of 33.3%, which are both a record high for Green Brick and the best among public homebuilding peers as shown on Slide 4. Strong orders and improved cycle times that are 120 days shorter than peak cycle times in 2022, bolstered our home revenue deliveries in 3Q by 16% year-over-year to 754 closed homes. As a result, homebuilding revenue increased 5.3% to $416 million. We continue to generate over 80% of our revenues from infill and infill adjacent communities. Net income for the third quarter was $72 million or $1.56 per diluted share, which resulted in a return on average book equity of 25.3% year-to-date. We believe our exceptional results stem from our superior locations, our self-development land strategy, operational and process improvements, and most importantly, the hard work, dedication and operational excellence of our team. Net new orders remained robust during the third quarter increasing 95% year-over-year to 788 homes. Year-to-date, our net new orders grew 73% year-over-year,…

Thank you, Jim. Please turn to Slide 9 of the presentation. Home closings revenue for the third quarter grew 5.3% to $416 million driven by our 16% year-over-year increase in home closing units to 754 homes delivered. This is partially offset by a 9% decline in our ASP to $551,000. The decline in ASP was predominantly driven by a year-over-year increase in the percentage of Trophy Signature Homes closed as well as by a change in product mix within Trophy. In that regard, Trophy has both shifted to offering smaller square footage homes and transitioned from their most expensive houses as they close out their most prime locations. Our homebuilding gross margin was not affected by a lower ASP. On the contrary, it has climbed each quarter since 4Q of '22 and reached a record high of 33.3% during the third quarter. This Q3 level was 90 basis points higher than our previous record set in 3Q of '22. Homebuilding gross margins have consistently been among the highest in the homebuilding industry as shown on Slide 4. SG&A, as a percentage of residential unit revenue for the third quarter, was up 40 basis points year-over-year to 11.3%, primarily due to an increase in brokerage commissions that have returned to historic norms for co-broker deals. For the quarter, pretax income increased 0.5% to $98 million. Net income attributable to Green Brick and diluted earnings per share were slightly down to $72 million and $1.56 per share, respectively, due to a higher tax rate in connection with the timing and stricter eligibility for 45L energy efficiency home credits. We expect fewer homes to be eligible for tax credits this year compared to 2022 due to the change in qualification requirements. However, we are building more ENERGY STAR-certified homes to increase our future…

Thank you, Rick. Despite higher mortgage rates, sales orders were stronger than typical seasonal trends across our brands during the third quarter. Net orders in Q3 were up 95% year-over-year and year-to-date net orders are now 73% higher. This was not a surprise to us as demand continued to outweigh supply in our infill and infill adjacent locations. While demand is robust, affordability became more challenging as mortgage rates increased during the third quarter. As a result, incentives on new orders ticked up in September to 5.1%. For the quarter, incentives averaged at 4.4% of sales price, up from 3.9% in the previous quarter. Our perimeter neighborhoods require the most incentives. We are carefully managing our sales pace on a community-by-community basis. While sales orders remain strong year-over-year and an 8% plus mortgage rate may cause a negative impact on buyer psychology and create affordability concerns that affect buyers' decisions on how much house they can purchase, where they can afford to purchase a home and whether to purchase a home. In October, we increased incentives and restored offering limited rate buydowns and/or closing cost credits in selective neighborhoods. We will continue to monitor the market carefully to adjust our pricing as needed as well as use our market intelligence to drive decisions on exactly what type of floor plans to build and options to provide, providing when prudent, more affordable options for our buyers and broadening our base of potential buyers. As Jim mentioned earlier, our industry-leading gross margins should afford us to be more aggressive in pricing our homes if the market slows down. Our supply chain remains stable. With improvements in the availability of labor and materials, our overall cycle times for homes closed in the third quarter decreased by another 40 days sequentially to approximately 6.1…

Thank you, Jed. To conclude our call today, I want to express my appreciation to our employees. We believe that a company is only as extraordinary as its people. We are proud to have a team that embodies the company's vision and mission and has worked tirelessly to achieve industry-leading performance time and again. I would also like to congratulate Jed again on his well-earned promotion and thank him for his leadership and contributions. Jed's strategic and disciplined approach to our operations has led to Green Brick's success and growth. We remain committed to executing our strategic goals and capitalizing on the long-term demand for housing. We pride ourselves in building exceptional homes at industry-leading gross margins and expanding our market share, while maintaining a strong balance sheet. We are well equipped to continue to create value for our shareholders. Thank you once again for your participation and support. This concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Jay McCanless with Wedbush.

So the first question I had, talking about the price shift in Trophy Signature, any color you could give us on where ASPs are running for that brand now versus where maybe they had been a quarter or two ago?

Yes. This is Jed. Jay, we've seen a dip from, say, $480,000 down to approximately $450,000 over the past two quarters.

And do you think that's going to be the kind of the run rate going forward with that brand?

Probably. It's hard to figure out mix right now. I think we just mentioned that Austin is averaging about $325,000. We build smaller homes down there. So if the consumers are gravitating towards the smaller homes, it possibly could go down below $450,000.

And then the other question I had with the smaller homes, are we still talking the same gross margin percentage? Or how is that going to trend as you go to those smaller footprints?

Yes. Great question. We're seeing consistent margin at Trophy across square footage.

Jay, this is Jim. To add a little bit of color to that. As Trophy continues to be a greater percentage of our revenue, I think you are going to see margins on Trophy go down. But we're still optimistic that our return on capital is going to maintain the same because we're going to be able to turn that inventory much faster, at slightly lower margins. So we think that the economics are going to be similar to the rest of our brands, but it's just going to come slightly lower margins, slightly faster sales pace, lower cycle time.

Your next question comes from the line of Carl Reichardt with BTIG.

Congratulations, Jed. Jim, you talked about land and seeing some pockets of opportunity now. One of your peers said yesterday that they're starting to see lot developers, who thought they had a builder on a hook, a small builder for a deal or small builders are walking from deals, can't put them on balance sheet or whatever. So they're seeing some opportunities. Can you talk about the kinds of deals you're seeing out there? Is this more related to Trophy, more related to the traditional business? What kind of margin you're underwriting to? And what has changed to make those opportunities show up? If it's not price, is there something else that suddenly made them attractive like they're available and they weren't before?

Well, I think the main driver of this is capital availability. It's really not demand. That's why we're pretty optimistic about what's going on. We're still seeing very strong demand for housing, but to get an acquisition development loan at a bank right now is a very difficult process for a developer. And we have actually cashed out some developers where we were going to option lots in future phases. As you know, we were sitting on about $230 million of cash. And in 3 or 4 neighborhoods, these developers really wanted cash badly, and we helped them with that situation at really favorable economics to our company by cashing -- basically buying lots that we had options in future phases that we think are great, because we've been -- we've been building there for a year, 2 weeks, 3 years with great sales, and we took -- we seized on those opportunities. We think there's going to be more opportunities. One of the opportunities we really are working on in 2 or 3 transactions right now that we don't have a lot of competition in is buying a larger piece of properties that might have a small commercial component to them or maybe even the small multifamily component to them. Those are very difficult deals to finance right now. And if -- we will buy large parcels that have those components where other builders won't. And basically, we put those parcels in at a very de minimis value, so if they don't work out. We don't have a lot of risk and we're buying it for the residual value of either the single family or the townhouse land. So yes, we're seeing kind of the first end of opportunities just because of the capital constrained markets of the lending environment and the higher cost of capital.

That's a very comprehensive answer. And then obviously, we talked a lot about Trophy, how it's performing, what the customers there are seeing. Can you talk about the business sort of the second move-up and some of the segments of the business that you addressed that a lot of the other public builders don't on the higher end and how those communities are performing, what your customers are seeing and doing?

Yes, I'll take that, Carl. This is Jed. We're seeing very strong demand for the infill locations in the second and even third time move up. So we're seeing -- we're seeing far less incentives at those price points and very continued strong demand. Those houses are not as easy to build as the lower entry-level Trophy homes, so they're more complex. So we're happy with the sales pace that we're selling those homes at today.

And Carl, interestingly our -- this is Rick. Interestingly, our deposits are still real strong there. And we're seeing probably twice as many cash deals as we did before as buyers are recognizing, hey, this is like getting a 30-year 8% CD. So there -- they have the capability of selling assets or already in cash.

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Rygiel with B. Riley Securities.

Nice quarter, gentlemen. A couple of quick questions here. First, can you talk a little bit about sort of the net new community openings planned for the next 4 quarters?

We're not disclosing any kind of range of percentages in new community growth. But with 6,000 finished lots on the ground at the end of the year, we're going to have plenty of start opportunities including new communities, obviously.

From an operational standpoint, I would just add that we're excited about the 6,000 lots. We feel like we will not be bumping up against sales limitations and/or gap out situations like we previously had. The fact of the matter is it just takes a long time to get these lots on the ground in today's environment. We like -- we really like the basis we're at. We really love the locations, and we're excited to just build homes and not have to worry about land development so much.

And then new home or home starts outpaced new orders a bit. Starts were, I think, 3.4 per community. Is your target absorption 3 or higher now? Is that a sort of a safe number to assume?

That's the neighborhood that we've been on the top side of now for the entire year. Actually for the entire year, we're more like 3.6, but 3 works great. If we are right in that neighborhood, it is -- it would be wonderful.

As Trophy expands at lower price points, obviously, we're expecting a lot more sales per neighborhood. We were thrilled in Austin, and we just had a grand opening there. What did we make 12 sales this month, Jed?

We did.

So I hope we do that next month. I don't promise. But as Trophy expands in the $350,000 price point, we expect a lot more sales per neighborhood.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Alex Barron with Housing Research Center.

Good morning, gentlemen and great job on the quarter. Sorry, I had to step out for a couple of minutes. I don't know if somebody asked this already. But on your margins, obviously, a new high here. I was just kind of curious how much in the way of incentives is embedded in those margins? And how sustainable do you guys foresee those being into the next year or so?

Well, we answered it partly, Alex. The margins in our AAA locations, particularly like The Providence Group in Georgia only builds in totally infill locations. Incentives there were totally de minimis. In a C location for Trophy, where we're going to be down the street from other large public builders. Jed, what our incentives are going to be competitive with Horton and what you're seeing with Pulte and other guys?

Yes, they could range up to 8%.

And really, Alex, it's very much going to vary by community on a blended basis. We went from 3.9% to 4.4% total incentives during the quarter from Q3 to Q4. So if interest rates are going to remain high, they're going to be a little bit higher. So it really will depend on what your forecast is for interest rates.

Got it. Jim, in terms of -- I was wondering if you guys have any kind of average statistics for your average consumer. What's their household income? What's their average FICO, what's the average down payment that they're putting down, those types of things?

Well, the average FICO was 743. Obviously, that varies as you move out in the perimeter, it goes down. And as you move into a AAA location, it goes up as does the down payment. Down payments with our Florida builder, GHO, are over $100,000. Our cancellation rate, I think, was 1 as a result. When you go to a C location, we will experience probably the more typical 15% to 16% cancellation rate. And in the infill locations, they're still single digit.

What about household incomes that you guys are seeing?

They range so widely just even within Trophy that I hate to give an exact number on that. It's really community by community.

I guess what I'm just trying to get at is there's this wide perception that 8% is like hard for people to qualify. But obviously, that depends what people are looking at the home, so that's what I'm trying to get at.

Well, our mortgage joint venture tells us there's still wiggle room in incomes, but we're pushing on the C location, the most of the buyer can pay. If that answers your question?

Yes. I would add that in the perimeter locations, we're seeing the debt-to-income ratios in the low 40s. Yes. And it's not uncommon for average household income for -- in those far perimeter locations $8,000 to $10,000 a month.

Alex, let me touch on one other thing that I don't think we communicate enough to analysts and investors. Our Trophy brand -- Jed, what's the smallest down payment or earnest money deposit we get at the Trophy?

Yes, Typically $5,000.

Okay. So let's say, it's $4,000 to $5,000 in Trophy. Many of our peers when you take a look at their backlog, they're accepting contracts with a $500 earnest money deposit. It's basically a free option for buyers. That's another reason why our cancellation rate is so much lower because we're not a credit repair shop. We actually expect people when they give us earnest money to buy a house and close.

And we're seeing most buyers transact, especially with the Trophy brand, we're seeing them buy finished homes where they can contract and close within 30 days.

So what I'm trying to say is all backlogs are not created equally. We have a higher quality backlog.

Got it. And if I could ask one more, are you guys using forward commitments to lower the rates or just standard buy down the points -- standard rate buydown?

We're using some forward commitments, but we -- our typical incentive package, the consumer is using it to partially pay down rates and partially pay for closing costs. We're -- our mortgage JV tells us that for this quarter, our average rate for mortgage close was about 100 bps underneath what market rate was that day -- during that time period. So they're using some of that incentive to buy down the rate.

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, there are no further questions. This concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.