Earnings Labs

Hovnanian Enterprises, Inc. (HOV)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Dec 13, 2012

$117.24

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for Hovnanian Enterprises Fiscal 2012 Fourth Quarter and Year End Earnings Conference Call. An archive of the webcast will be available after the completion of the call and run for 12 months. This conference is being recorded for rebroadcast [Operator Instructions] The company will also be webcasting a slide presentation along with the opening comments from management. The slides are available on the Investors page of the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log onto the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to turn the call over to Jeff O'Keefe, Vice President, Investor Relations. Jeff, please go ahead.

Jeffrey T. O'Keefe

Analyst

Thank you. I'm going to read through our forward-looking statement very quickly. All statements during this conference that are not historical facts should be considered as forward-looking statements. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that our plans, intentions and expectations reflected in or suggested by such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such plans, intentions or expectations will be achieved. Such risks and uncertainties and other factors include, but are not limited to, changes in general and local economic and industry, business conditions and impacts of the sustained homebuilding downturn; adverse weather and other environmental conditions and natural disasters; changes in market conditions and seasonality of the company's business; changes in home prices and sales activities in the markets where the company builds homes; government regulations, including regulations concerning development of land, the homebuilding, sales and customer financing processes; tax laws and the environment; fluctuations in interest rates and the availability of mortgage financing; shortages in and price fluctuations of raw materials and labor; the availability and cost of suitable land and improved lots; levels of competition; availability of financing to the company; utility shortages and outages or rate fluctuations; levels of indebtedness and restrictions on the company's operations and activities imposed by the agreements governing the company's outstanding indebtedness; the company's sources of liquidity; changes in credit ratings; availability of net operating loss carryforwards; operations through joint ventures with third parties; product liability litigation, warranty claims and claims by mortgage investors; successful identification and integration of acquisitions; significant influence of the company's controlling stockholders; changes in tax laws affecting the after-tax cost of owning a home; geopolitical risks, terrorist acts and other acts of war; and other factors described in detail on the company's annual report on the Form 10-K for the year ended October 31, 2011, and the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended April 30, 2012. Except as otherwise required by applicable securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, changed circumstances or any other reason. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Ara Hovnanian, our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. Ara, go ahead.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Thanks, Jeff, and thank you, all, for participating in this morning's call to review the results of our fourth quarter and year end of October 2012. Joining me today from the company are Larry Sorsby, Executive Vice President and CFO; Brad O'Connor, Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller; David Valiaveedan, Vice President of Finance and Treasurer; and Jeff O'Keefe, Vice President of Investor Relations. On Slide 3, you can see a brief summary of our fourth quarter results and comparisons to the prior year. The homebuilding recovery continues to move forward. First, not necessarily in the order of the chart, we are reporting our first quarterly pretax profit before gains or losses from debt extinguishment in many years. This is a major milestone for us; hopefully, the first of many profitable quarters to come. Virtually every metric improved again except for community count, which I will discuss more fully in a moment. Throughout the year, we have made steady progress on our operating performance. We show the drivers of these improvements on Slide 4. In the top left quadrant of the slide, you can see that we reported steady growth in our total revenues in each of the 4 quarters of fiscal '12. At the same time, our top line was growing. We reported 180 basis point improvement in gross margin from the beginning of the year, which can be seen in the upper right-hand portion of the slide. In fact, it's our sixth sequential quarterly improvement in gross margin. On the bottom left-hand quadrant, we show quarterly SG&A percent in yellow bars and quarterly interest percentage in the red bars. The graph demonstrates the benefit of our operating leverage, which is the result of revenue growth while maintaining SG&A and interest dollars nearly constant. During the fourth…

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Thanks, Ara. We continue to look for new land in all of our markets. The left-hand side of Slide 18 shows that we have controlled 21,900 lots since January of 2009, including 2,400 net new lots during the fourth quarter of 2012. Bottom right-hand side shows that total gross additions during the fourth quarter were 2,800 lots. We also walked away from about 400 newly identified lots. Net results for the fourth quarter was that our total lots purchased or controlled since January 2009 increased about 2,400 lots sequentially from the third quarter of 2012. For the second quarter in a row, we are replenishing our land faster than we're using it. Our total owned and optioned lot position increased sequentially by 748 lots during the fourth quarter. Turning now to Slide 19. You'll see our owned and optioned land position broken out by our publicly reported segments. Based on our trailing 12-month deliveries, we owned 3.5 years worth of land. However, if you exclude the 6,823 mothballed lots, we only owned 2.1 years of land, based on the delivery rate of the past 4 quarters. At the end of the fourth quarter, 77% of our optioned lots are newly identified lots, and 29% of our owned lots were newly identified lots. If you exclude mothballed lots, 49% of our owned lots are newly identified. When you combine our optioned and owned land together, 49% of the total lots that we control today are newly identified lots. Excluding mothballed lots, 64% of our total lots are newly identified lots. Our investment in land option deposits was $57.5 million at October 31, 2012, with $56.3 million in cash deposits and the other $1.2 million of deposits being held by letters of credit. Additionally, we have another $5.2 million invested in predevelopment…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And your first question today comes from the line of Nishu Sood with Deutsche Bank.

Nishu Sood - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

I wanted to ask first about the order pricing. Your order number was up 23%. Your total order volumes, dollar volumes were up 46%. That's a trend that's been going on, but that was a pretty marked jump in that, and it was across a lot of your -- basically, across all of your regions. So I just want to understand what was driving that and whether we could expect that to continue.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Yes, I'd like to say that it was just that we raised home prices that much in every market. But in fact, it was just really a matter of 2 different mixes combined with some home prices. The 2 different mixes are just the mix of communities that delivered homes had higher prices. And we have seen a bit of a shift toward larger homes by some of our customers combined with some higher option dollars bringing the average price up. So it's really been a mix of many factors.

Nishu Sood - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

Got it. Okay, and in terms of your land acquisitions. The pace obviously picked up a lot in the second half of the year. If I look at it on a whole year basis, you still added less lots, around 5,000 versus how many you closed, so 5,300 or so. As you look at it, I mean, does the pace of the second half need to continue to fuel growth into the housing recovery? Or are we going to see some seasonality? Obviously, you're generating more cash flows in the second half of the year, and so you might see a slowdown in the pace in the first half of the year.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

No, our goal is to continue that current pace. And so far, we feel pretty good about the opportunities that are out there. Early in the year, it's really -- if you think about it, that's when we experienced a pretty marked improvement in sales pace, and prices began to go up. And that made it easier to justify land residuals that the land sellers wanted. So early in the year when the pricing was just coming up, we just didn't have opportunities that met the criteria, but as the pricing and paces of homes jumped, we were able to find more opportunities, and we continue to find them right now.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes, Nishu, I think it's a false conclusion to draw that the first half of the year we were reluctant to purchase land because of our liquidity position. The reason that we had less land purchased in the first half of the year is there were less sellers willing to sell at prices where we could underwrite it at our 25-plus percent unlevered IRR. It was not a capital limitation. Having said that, going forward, although we need, in order to grow, to replenish at a faster rate than we're delivering homes, we're going to stay disciplined on our underwriting criteria and not overpay for land just to make sure we have more lots.

Nishu Sood - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

And how much development is required on the lots that you were picking up in the second half of the year?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

It's really a whole mix. I think I mentioned that in general we're definitely finding fewer developed lot opportunities. A lot of those that are in good locations got picked over. But they still exist. We just bought a couple of hundred fully developed lots in Orlando just a few weeks ago. So the opportunities exist. But I'd say more often than not lately, we're seeing the better opportunities where we have to develop lots. Luckily -- and obviously, that changes by market, by the way. In Houston, we definitely still see more finished lot opportunities, and we see them scattered around. But in general, I think we can plan on more development opportunities. The good thing is that we're quite used to land development. I think we're good at it, and that's not something that concerns us. Generally speaking, we have to have higher margins in those cases to overcome the slower inventory turns in order to get our IRRs to meet our hurdle rates of 25% plus, but we've been able to find those opportunities.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Rehaut with JPMorgan. Michael Jason Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: First question on the GSO relationship. I was wondering if you could describe how it works in terms of returns, if there are profit participation above a certain level and what that level might be in terms of either margins or returns. And also how do you distinguish between taking land on through your own balance sheet or through the GSO relationship?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Okay, let me address the terms that are not disclosed. But safe to say, as we said in the past, that they're very similar to a typical land banking deal that we did in the last cycle and our peers did in the last cycle. There's a, basically a return on dollars deployed that GSO receives, and we put down a deposit. It's truly an option. We can walk away from it and all that we're at risk for is our option deposit. There is no participation of any kind. All GSO gets is the agreed upon return. That does not change, it's a fixed return. In terms of determining whether it goes to the GSO or whether we do it on a wholly-owned basis, I mean, if it's a fixed lot option that we're purchasing on some kind of flow basis, it certainly doesn't make any sense to put it into GSO. If it's a smaller parcel and less dollars that's going to be completed in 12, 18, 24 months, it probably doesn't make sense to put it in a GSO. So we kind of focus on communities that have higher cost per lot and may have some development work and had a little longer life. So larger deals would be looked at more seriously to go into GSO and smaller deals, we would favor doing on our own as a general rule. Michael Jason Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: I appreciate that, that's helpful. Secondly, I just had a question actually on the accounting side. I noticed that you're reporting a lot, and I think you kind of break it out afterwards in the way we're more used to. But at least on the press release and the presentation reporting a lot of numbers, most numbers units, including JVs on a regional level and on a consolidated level. I think that's largely in contrast to most of your peers. And in addition, the commissions, both internal and external, are in your cost of sales. And I think only 2 other builders out of the 12 we cover do that. So I was just wondering if there's any thoughts around perhaps trying to align those 2 areas of accounting more towards the vast majority of the peer group, just would be very helpful for a comparability standpoint.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes, let me first address the with and without JVs. I think, as I think you alluded to, we provide it both ways, and we'll continue to provide it both ways. But we have more JVs than most of our peers. A lot of our peers did JVs in the past that perhaps had hidden recourse or had more recourse and they decided to get out of the JV business. We always structured ours to where we didn't have any recourse. And the proof was kind of in the pudding that we didn't have to reach into our pockets and subsidize the JVs in any way, shape or form. We still could lose money, just as we did it on our wholly-owned stuff with JVs, but at least we didn't have to put additional funds in. So we have probably more JVs than our peers. So that when we think in terms of our performance, in terms of how much did our contracts go up, we worked just as hard to get a JV contract sold to a homebuyer as we do on a wholly-owned basis. So that's the reason we do it, and we're really not contemplating changing that, but we will tell you we'll continue to provide you the data both ways so that you can slice and dice it any way you see fit. And I think the other one had to do with the SG&A being in gross margin, and there's just 3 of -- or commissions. I think there's 3 of us that do it that way, and I wish all builders did it on an apples-to-apples basis. But I've been in this business a long time, and it's never been apples-to-apples. As you know, we've attempted to show the comparison, making that adjustment for everyone. I think, we did that for 2 or 3 quarters in a row, we didn't do it this quarter, just to explain to people that it's not always apples-to-apples. But there's never been a consistent way that homebuilders have done it, and I don't think there's any movement out there to attempt to get everybody to do it exactly the same. Michael Jason Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: All right. Yes, I think one other builder might've switched over, but hopefully we can get everyone on the same line. One other question on the gross margins. Nice improvement there sequentially if you exclude the interest costs. I think up roughly -- let me see, up about 90 bps sequentially, including cost of -- interest and cost of sales. Just wanted to know on a sequential basis what you thought the driver was of doing some incremental leverage from a fixed cost or if you had better pricing coming through in the quarter, and thoughts in terms of potential for continued improvement in 2013, perhaps even off of the base that you've achieved in the back half of '12.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

I'll try to take a crack at that, if I can remember all parts of it. First of all, gross margin improvement generally is not that affected by velocity of sales, although we did get a little pickup from velocity, because construction overhead is one of the items in gross margin. And we pick up a little more efficiency as we deliver more homes per community, so that benefits us. Most of the other areas are not velocity-dependent. The margin benefit came a little bit from lots of places, part of which we touched on in the prepared comments. We certainly did have some price increases, home price increases, offset a little bit by construction costs. We also had a more favorable mix of our deliveries coming from newly acquired land parcels. And those generally have better margins than deliveries from some of our older legacy properties. And there's just been a little bit more purchasing in the larger models than there were in the last couple of years. I think interest rates are helping that, and people are able to bump up to a larger home without a huge effect on monthly payments. So that's giving a little extra boost as well.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question does come from the line of Alan Ratner with Zelman & Associates. Alan Ratner - Zelman & Associates, LLC: Ara, my first question was just on your community count guidance. It sounds like you are expecting to see some growth to occur at least on a year-over-year basis in the back half of next year. I was wondering if you might be able to provide a target on year-end, either on a net basis or in terms of kind of gross that you expect to open through the year, and then maybe a rough guess on close outs.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Alan, as you well recognize probably better than most, that's just a difficult, difficult number for any homebuilder to project. I mean, internally, obviously, we have a pretty good handle on what we think the divisions are going to do assuming that nothing changes in terms of sales pace and that the timing of the opening of the communities happen precisely when we expect it to occur. But if timing changes in terms of when we get the final approvals to open a community or if sales paces a little faster, a little slower, it can significantly impact the number. So we're just not comfortable putting out a projection that gives you any real clarity other than the big message, which is we think we have a good shot and stable market environment of growing the community count this year. Alan Ratner - Zelman & Associates, LLC: Okay, great. Okay, that's helpful. And I certainly understand the challenges provided in that guidance. The second question is on the corporate G&A line. You've actually done a great job at managing that despite the 30% plus increase in revenue you saw this year. And I was just curious, you're exiting the year at a quarterly run rate close to about $11 million. I think you're close to about $13 million coming into the year. What's the right target to think about that going forward? Is the fourth quarter run rate a pretty clean number for us to use? Or would you expect that to show some lift as you open more communities?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

I apologize, I didn't understand the question. Can you give it to me succinctly? Alan Ratner - Zelman & Associates, LLC: Just the corporate G&A, which is $11.3 million this quarter. That's been down, I think, 3 straight quarters. So just curious what the -- if that's a clean run rate, and what the growth looks like as you open communities.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

If you're talking corporate SG&A, I would say you should assume what our current run rate has been in the future terms of your model. I mean, it's not something we provide any clear guidance on. But if I was sitting in your chair, that's what I would use.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

We don't anticipate any big changes at the moment there. But -- and by the way, one additional point of clarity on the community count that makes it so challenging. In our case, when a community gets to fewer than 10 homes, we don't count it in community count, which is why -- I mean, there are many reasons why it's difficult to project the number. But if you're teetering around 10 or 12 homes in a community, all it takes is one sale early or a cancellation of one to make the community count bob up and down from month to month. So it's a challenging number, but we feel pretty good about the land acquisition opportunities and about our ability to continue to grow the top line growth in 2013.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Dan Oppenheim with Crédit Suisse. Michael Dahl - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: It's Mike on for Dan. Just 2 quick follow-ups on the GSO arrangement. First, just curious what your sense is on timing of community openings from the initial land put into the land bank.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes, I mean, some of them were open when we sold it to them, or just about to be opened. So much of the initial batch is probably an active selling community or soon to be an active selling community. Michael Dahl - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: And then the next batch could still come online in 2013 [indiscernible] ?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes, I mean, there can be some delay if you have to do land development. If you're buying a raw piece of land, there'll be the same delay that we'd have if we were buying a raw piece of land on a wholly-owned basis. We have to do the land development, so it might be 5 to 9 months before you could have it opened. But there's nothing unusual about the GSO relationship that would cause the communities to come on slower or faster than if we had purchased them on a wholly-owned basis, with the one exception that the very, very first tranche that we did with them, the entire tranche was stuff that we had previously purchased.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Generally speaking, I'd expect even the second level, the second $125 million, that most of those will be open by the end of the year. Michael Dahl - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Got it. And then just a quick clarification. On the fixed return, is that regardless of the type of community purchased? Or is there any sort of scale?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Yes. Michael Dahl - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Regardless?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Yes.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Megan McGrath with MKM Partners.

Megan McGrath - MKM Partners LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Just a little bit of a follow-up on the land issue. We've been talking to some folks who talk about the value of -- given that you're seeing subcontractors be a little tight on adding labor, that there's a value to keeping sort of a straighter time line in terms of construction. So when you think about what you're buying and what's in the pipeline, is there a value to maybe buying something with a lower IRR but that will allow you to keep a straighter line in terms of your construction? And would you be willing to take maybe something sub-20% just in order to keep that -- your subcontractors happy and your pace sort of more even?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

I wouldn't say -- I mean, while there might be times when we'd look at an opportunity that's sub-25% for unique circumstances, it's not often and it's not driven by subcontractor concerns. Having said that, we're always looking to keep a strong relationship with our subcontractors and really focus on being a good partner with them, giving them good construction schedule information, which we do electronically on our computerized scheduling system, and it's updated nightly. We try to make sure we keep our payment process very smooth and effortless, and they can look up payables also online on their own private web portals that they have access to, to see the status of outstanding payments. And we try to make sure we pay timely. We have a very good variance purchase order system that doesn't leave them in the dark with construction. If there are valid reasons and there often are, for cost overruns, we have a good system to process that throughout our company. So there are a variety of things we do to build a strong relationship with our subcontractors. But I wouldn't say we'd be buying land to keep their workforces happy.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

I mean, frankly, what's happening now is we're in a growth mode as an industry, certainly as a company, and more is coming, and we're keeping them abreast of that, but it isn't that we're kind of having peaks and valleys in most of the markets. It's kind of all of our markets are gradually increasing along with the market.

Megan McGrath - MKM Partners LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Okay, great. And just a quick follow-up on Hurricane Sandy from the -- from a cost side. Are you seeing any tightness in East Coast labor or construction supplies after Sandy?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

It's interesting, and I think we mentioned this before in our last call, most of our markets have shown a real marked improvement during the year, including the very close in locations in New Jersey. But some of the further out suburbs of New Jersey has been a little slower than other parts of the country. So they haven't had, prior to Hurricane Sandy, the normal cost pressures that we've seen in some of the other markets where housing permits and starts are way up. Having said that, recognizing that it's a slower period of starts in the winter in the Northeast, I wouldn't be surprised if there's little costing pressure. But it might come out to be overall similar to what we are experiencing in other markets but for different reasons.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Joel Locker with FBN Securities.

Joel Locker - FBN Securities, Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Just on your share count, it's a little lower than I thought. And just what would it be going forward with -- on a diluted and a basic?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Brad, I'll let you handle that one.

Brad G. O'Connor

Analyst

Well, if you're looking at the annual versus the quarterly, you can see that...

Joel Locker - FBN Securities, Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Just the quarterly going forward.

Brad G. O'Connor

Analyst

Quarterly, it should not move much from where it is unless we were to do something new. I mean we do have the tangible equity units that were issued 1 year ago. Those are already counted in the calculation. So as those convert, we have already counted those. So there really isn't anything that I would anticipate to make that share count grow in the future other than kind of normal things that you'd seen in prior years, if there was any stock option exercises or stock grants that vest an issue. But those are not large numbers. So I mean, we also have the convertible notes we issued in October out there as the possibility of being converted, but I wouldn't anticipate that happening in any great events for a while. So...

Joel Locker - FBN Securities, Inc., Research Division

Analyst

But the convertible notes are not going to be included.

Brad G. O'Connor

Analyst

They are not included, that's correct.

Joel Locker - FBN Securities, Inc., Research Division

Analyst

All right. Just to I guess base the last question on interest expense going forward. If you drop to $17 million in interest payments a year, it's $4 million in a quarter, per quarter. I mean is the new base rate for interest expense barring its inventory moves around, around $21 million?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

You probably can't do it as easy as that, Joel, because of the way we capitalize interests. So it'll take a little -- there'll be a lag before that comes through in the expense side.

Joel Locker - FBN Securities, Inc., Research Division

Analyst

But barring anything if your inventory stays around $9 billion or $8 billion in total, or if that doesn't move much, obviously it's going to move if the inventory numbers move but.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes, but I would say it's just we capitalize based on what the expense was at the time that's still and capitalize interest in that inventory as we close a house. It will be higher because of what was higher at that point in time. It just takes a while for us to kind of work through. And there's just a lag before that cash interest savings comes through in terms of interest expense on the P&L. Some of it will come through right away. Others, it just won't be as clean as you described it, that's all I'm trying to say.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of David Goldberg with UBS.

David Goldberg - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Analyst

I want to ask a question. I know people have kind of been hitting on this pricing cost question. But Ara in the opening remarks you mentioned that a lot of the year-over-year gross margin improvement you saw was really driven more by the fact that you're more on delivering more homes on newly acquired lots. And you also mentioned that as you get good price appreciation, you're seeing cost pressure. And so I'm wondering if you guys have looked at what kind of captured you -- rate you kind of get on price appreciation. In other words, if prices go up $1, how much do think goes up -- did you lose in higher cost, versus how much do you think you capture? And is that something we're just not seeing yet in the margin, that's why it's not more impactful?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

It's not something we track that way. There's just so many moving parts on margins, where the mix from deliveries coming from. If we are buying finished lots on a quarterly takedown, those tend to have lower margins, but they have higher inventory turns, so we still get to our IRR. But if you have a higher percentage delivering at any given point in time from that type of land arrangement versus situations where we develop land, that can affect it, the mix of model types, the mix of -- in a given quarter, how many come from legacy position. So there can be -- there are just a lot of ups and downs there. We've been making great progress, as we said, on our gross margins, 350 basis points, I believe, over the last 6 quarters. We anticipate, barring some unforeseen circumstances, that we're going to continue to improve our gross margins and, hopefully, including this year coming up. But we just don't calc how much of it is directly from each factor. There are just so many moving parts.

David Goldberg - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. Maybe I could try to ask the question a little bit differently, and maybe this is too vague too, so I apologize if it is. But when you look out at how you negotiate your pricing for labor and materials and with your subcontractors, how long can you effectively fix those costs relative to the home price? In other words, you say, hey, we're going to build this home. It's a 3-month build cycle. Here's the cost and it's [indiscernible], and then you have to renegotiate. I mean, how long when you kind of think about your different subcontractor bases, do you fix your labor and your material costs as you look forward?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

It varies quite a bit. So let me try to give some instances. Appliance -- branded items, appliances, kitchen cabinets, carpeting, certain other materials, we tend to have a longer fixed pricing. Typically, it's, on average, I'd say about 2 years. So there, we use the power of our buying volume to -- and we typically single-source our branded items so that -- and we trade that for a good pricing and a locked position. And like I said, appliances is probably the classic one. Lighting fixtures are another one; and, to some extent, windows. Other materials were really much, much shorter term and were subject to commodity prices. Concrete is an example of that, where the fluctuations are every couple of months. Lumber, we vary by geography. It can be 2 months to 6 months tops typically, and that will vary quite a bit. On the labor front, sometimes the price is tied to a community, if it's a short community life. Other times it's tied to just pure timing. Having said that, if the subcontractor uses piece workers, and that's not uncommon, and their pricing goes up, they may have a problem delivering the velocity we need, and sometimes we may have to reluctantly reconsider the pricing partway through their contract to be able to keep up with an accelerated pace. So I'd say the answer is it's all over the place. In general, though, it's definitely a linked relationship. Pricing -- subcontractor pricing is typically going up as velocity is increasing. And as velocity goes up, home prices -- homebuilders check their velocity by increasing the home prices. So they generally go hand-in-hand, and that's why, while we are concerned, and we don't want to sell too far out in advance, we don't lose too much sleep over it because we -- the construction cost increases typically come in an environment where we're able to get home price increases too.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Pinchot with Gilford Securities.

Jeremy W. Pinchot - Gilford Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Gilford Securities.

One quick question and maybe a quick follow-up. Any thoughts or color you can give us on potential plans for the preferred shares?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst · Gilford Securities.

Yes. I mean, we're prohibited by covenant from paying the dividend on the preferred until such time as our coverage ratio is vastly improved from where we are now. Once we get to that level, I think it's 2x, then it's up to the Board of Directors to make a determination as when it would be appropriate to turn the dividend back on. Beyond that, I mean we're not considering doing anything with the preferreds.

Jeremy W. Pinchot - Gilford Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Gilford Securities.

Got it. And clearly no line of sight yet on when that 2x would occur?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst · Gilford Securities.

None.

Jeremy W. Pinchot - Gilford Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Gilford Securities.

Okay. And then just more specifically, regionally, any color or more detail on order and traffic trends in California and Texas?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst · Gilford Securities.

I'd say both of those have been pretty solid and steady. The only place where I could say we've seen a little change in order trends might be in the immediate D.C. suburbs just in the last 2 months, as often when you have the debt ceiling battles, and now with the fiscal cliff battles. There's just a little bit more hesitancy there. But putting that aside -- that market aside, I'd say overall has been pretty steady everywhere.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Alex Barrón with Housing Research Center. Alex Barrón - Housing Research Center, LLC: I wanted to focus a little bit on the SG&A, and I guess look back over the last couple of years. Looks like you guys went from $238 million 2 years ago to $211 million last year to $190 million this year, and yet your revenues have been better than the last 2 years. So can you kind of walk us back through what has changed? Is it headcount or what else is going on there?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

I mean, headcount is the biggest component of it. And then anything else, we've just scrubbed every line item that is in SG&A and tried to appropriately reduce it. Some instances in the past, we had contracts that we couldn't get out of. I'll use an unusual example, an HR contract for a particular tracking of performance reviews, that was $100,000 a year, or whatever the number was that we said, "Boy, I wish we didn't pay the $100,000, because we could do it a different way cheaper." Because we don't have 6,500 associates anymore, we couldn't get out of it contractually. It's now kind of gone away, so it's not in SG&A. That's just a example, Alex?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Office leases would be similar things, where we would've liked to have reduced it even sooner, but we are contractually obligated for a certain period. And then when that period is up, we move to smaller spaces or renegotiate.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

I mean, we just tightly manage cost. And clearly, it was painful for us and the entire industry in this downturn. But we took the appropriate steps to manage costs as tightly as we can, or could, and it's paying off dividend. We've been saying for quite some time that, as revenues increase, we're going to have a lot of operating leverage. And now you're actually seeing that demonstrated with actual results.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

I'll add one other point, and that's using an old cliché, necessity is the mother of invention. We certainly have learned to be more efficient in this downturn. And hopefully, efficiency is that we're going to keep in place even as the market picks up, and we've been demonstrating it so far as our volume goes up. Examples of that, we had service call centers throughout every division. So if somebody had a leaky toilet in the Galloping Hills neighborhood in Northern California, they'd call that local office, and there would be an operator there to take the notes in terms of their complaint and send out a purchase order -- or a service order to our staff. Now that is all done -- almost every location in the country is handled centrally in one call center, far more efficient. It's here in the states, it's not overseas, but it's a far, far more efficient way to operate. We are regionalizing accounts payable entry in many more geographies, which is more efficient. We are regionalizing the purchase order setup, coordinating with the purchasing departments, which is far more efficient. So there are a number of efficiencies we've implemented, and that helps our SG&A, especially as we are growing.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Susan Berliner with JPMorgan. Susan Berliner - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Just a couple questions from me. Ara, I was wondering if you could comment on what you're hearing regarding the mortgage interest tax deduction potentially changing, and if there -- as you see what's going on in Congress, what you think could be the potential from any of your homebuyers? I'm assuming it's pretty small. Just want to know if you guys could quantify it.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Sure. Well, it's anybody's call as to what's finally going to happen, but there has certainly been a lot of talk about eliminating the deduction on second homes. And there has been a lot of talk on reducing the ceiling further on deductible mortgages from the current $1 million dollar level to something lower, the $500,000 market has been bantered about. Neither of those concern us too much. While we don't think it's an appropriate time to deal with anything that can derail the housing recovery, because we think it's just so critical to the overall economy, we recognize the fiscal imbalance. And generally, we're part of the leading builders of America, and we endorse, somehow, getting to a better budget situation and avoiding getting into the fiscal cliff. So we recognize something is going to happen. Generally speaking, the over $500,000 mortgage level is not a big part of our market. Our average price is in the low $300,000 range. So we're not overly concerned about that. And while we do sell some second homes, it's not a huge part of our market. And thirdly, we do have a little niche in our business, the active adult business. Our customers today in that niche are taking financing. Most of them, a greater percentage anyway, about -- I think about 2/3 are taking financing. Most would qualify for an all cash, and I think they are just taking advantage of the opportunity of low rates right now to get financing. I don't think it would affect them very dramatically. So as I said, we're concerned about any legislation that affects housing in any negative way. And certainly mortgage interest deductibility is on our radar screen. But if it's in balance with a better budget overall, and they're not too severe, I think it's something that the homebuilders are prepared to deal with. Susan Berliner - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Great. My other question, I apologize if I missed this. Your orders for November being up about 18.5%, can you talk about -- I mean, with Sandy, an impact for that? Or is that a good run rate, or how should we think about that?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

I wouldn't say Sandy was a much of a factor at all. I mean, frankly, it occurred in the last few days of October. And while there's a little pickup in traffic in that market, I think most customers are trying to figure out what they're going to do, they're still talking to their insurance companies, and I don't think that most are in a position to go out and buy a new house because there's flooded.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

I'd say, if anything it may have slowed modestly, but it's only affected kind of New Jersey in a material way. So I don't think it affected the number overall. But I think it actually -- it reduced some sales we probably would have otherwise had in the New Jersey marketplace and maybe Delaware to a lesser degree. But I don't think it's a material number. But there weren't a lot of people out looking for houses for a few weeks, as you can imagine.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Michael Kim with CRT Capital Group.

Michael S. Kim - CRT Capital Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

First on gross margins, just wondering if you could describe the gross margin variance between your newly identified lots versus legacy lots? And do you think we're going to see the differential widen over the course of the next year? Or would you expect any movements to be in tandem?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

It's a difficult question to answer, but if you go to Slide 15 in our presentation. We tried to -- I think there's a correlation, but I can't tell you exactly what the impact is. In general, our legacy lots have lower margins on average than our newly identified lots do. So we think we're going to continue to march towards that 20% or 21%. But if you look on Slide 15, you can see that on the second quarter of '11, 39% of our deliveries were from newly identified, and the margin was 14.8%. I'm not going to do every quarter here. But in the fourth quarter of '11, it was 58% newly identified, and our margins had increased to 15.5%. By the second quarter of '12, that 43% of newly identified had increased to 61%, and our margins increased from 15.3% to 17.4% and so on. So it's closely related. In general, margins are higher probably closer to the normalized level, the 20% and 21% on the newly identified, and they're less than that on our legacy. Obviously, average can be misapplied when you look at an individual house sale or an individual community. But I think, on average, that's the correlation.

Michael S. Kim - CRT Capital Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Understood. And on -- when you're buying finished lots on a quarterly takedown basis, what is the gross margin differential, and what do the gross margins look for the GSO land banking arrangement relative to the company average?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Well, gross margins on finished lot acquisitions, depending on which division and what their overhead structure is, can certainly be 16% or so and still drive a good IRR. And in some cases where we have to develop the land, if it's a large-enough parcels, the gross margins may need to be 27% or 28%. So that's kind of the different range that we can see. And as Larry mentioned, just in terms of general guidance, the GSO transactions don't really occur with finished lots. Just doesn't make economic sense to if we already have a finished lot arrangement. So I think you can draw the conclusion that the GSO transactions have probably a higher gross margin than our overall company average.

Michael S. Kim - CRT Capital Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Do you have -- could you provide a sense of magnitude in terms of the benefit on the GSO land banking skills?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

The sense of magnitude in terms of what?

Michael S. Kim - CRT Capital Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Relative to the average right now?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

In terms of the margin?

Michael S. Kim - CRT Capital Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Yes.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes, I think, again, $250 million sounds like a huge number, but it is not going to be $250 million in a quarter or $250 million even 1 year. The average length of time these communities are going to be outstanding is probably around 3 years. So if you divided that up and then divided it by quarter -- you divide it by annual, and then divide it by quarters, yes, it will have some incremental negative impact on margin to the extent that they've bought parcels that we didn't previously own. On the ones we've previously owned it has no impact on margin, comes through on the interest. But I think in terms of you try to model it, I wouldn't get overly obsessed with it. I think it is an incremental negative but not material.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Yes, I wouldn't -- I think the effect on the GSO transaction will be far, far less on gross margin. I think the effect will be more on our top line. It just allows us to do that many more transactions and to be able to grow our top line all the more since it -- our ideal scenario is to buy every single lot on a finished-lot basis. And then we can do far more volume than we're doing now. It's hard to do every single lot, but with the GSO transaction, it allows us to do more homebuilding; that synthesizes the effect of buying from a developer on a finished-lot takedown. So I think it has more to do with volume than gross margin effect.

Michael S. Kim - CRT Capital Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Understood. And just lastly, when will you be posting the fourth quarter supplemental contract data summary, is the website just similar to last quarter?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes, we will put it out so that you can do it x JVs by market segment. I think that's what you're talking about. Yes, we will be putting that out.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is a follow-up question from the line of Michael Rehaut with JPMorgan. Michael Jason Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Just wanted to circle back to the order ASPs. I know you mentioned before, Ara, that it's driven by mix of communities and mix of product to larger homes. But just trying to get a sense of, given that earlier in the year, certainly there's a discernible trend here, but the jump in 4Q. I mean, I would think that perhaps you wouldn't necessarily be able to hold on to all of that type of jump near term, although perhaps longer term, it's something that we could see. Is that fair to -- a fair way to think about it?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

To be honest, I just haven't focused on what that average sales price projection or mix looks like, not that we give out projections anyway. But I just don't think we're -- we've got a discernible trend or strategy change right now. I think it's just going to depend on mixes, both product and geography and community, more than a strategy change. We are continuing to see an environment where we're able to pass on home price increases, I mean, just even in the last month or 2 as well. So that part is not changing, and hopefully that environment will continue.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes, Mike, we did not make a conscious decision across the country to go to higher-priced homes. I mean, some of it was driven by what the land was that we were able to find that made sense for us to purchase. And some of it could actually be within a business unit, what kind of land they found, and the other could be that there's more land in a higher-priced business unit, and less land in a lower-priced business unit so that it's geographic mix. So there was not a conscious decision for us to say "Let's raise our average sales price by doing a different kind of product." Having said that, in each of our individual markets, if consumers want the bigger model that we offer in that community rather than the smaller model that we offer in that community, you were seeing some of that happen. They are just saying with these low interest rates, we can buy a bigger house, or we're loading it up with options because it's affordable, because of the lower interest rates as well. So those are just things that are occurring in the marketplace rather than a very specific strategy on our part to have it occur. Michael Jason Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Right. That's fine. I appreciate that. And just lastly, on the community count, you mentioned that you expect things to maybe turn up a bit in the second half of next year. And I'm sorry if you hit this before, but should we expect a further or continued decline in -- over the next couple of quarters? I noticed that with your November order growth of 18%, it looks like that was primarily, versus 27% in the fourth quarter. I mean, it looks like that was primarily driven by perhaps community count continuing to shrink because your sales per community was still solid.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes, it's not something we'll give you more specific guidance on, but I think by us saying growth in the second half of the year, you can infer from that pretty accurately that it's just a lag of when these communities come on stream that we've purchased in the last half of 2012. But there's a lag effect, and we're not expecting growth in communities. Could it go down a few? Sure, it could happen. Michael Jason Rehaut - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: So just to be sure I understand, growth in the second half of next year is off of current levels?

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question is from the line of Alex Barrón with Housing Research Center. Alex Barrón - Housing Research Center, LLC: Just kind of wanted to follow-up on the SG&A question. Is it fair to assume that you guys hit the 10% rate -- your revenues are almost close to $500 million. Is it fair to assume that you could stay close to these SG&A levels as you ramp up towards $2 billion.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

You mean, by basically annualizing the fourth quarter? Yes, I think that's fair to say.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Yes, I think our target is 10% on an annual basis, so we hit it for the quarter. We think that's a sustainable level if we could keep the volumes smoothly there every quarter.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

Yes, and we achieved that in the last cycle. Alex Barrón - Housing Research Center, LLC: Okay, that's great. My other question was in the Phoenix market, I guess we saw probably the highest price appreciation this year, and we heard land prices were going up pretty significantly. How do you guys work around maintaining, I guess, discipline to make sure you're still hitting your targets there for underwriting?

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Again, we underwrite every single piece with the information for that piece. We look at surrounding comparables, we look at what they're selling for currently, what prices are, we adjust for finishes. If they have granite countertops, if they've got tile flooring and so forth, so we get an apples-to-apples comparison. We look at their pace. And if we can pencil back to make a land acquisition work and hit our hurdles, we do it. And thus far, we've been pretty successful. I will say, interestingly in Phoenix, we've had more success in that market in particular on the larger product, and that's been a trend for a couple of years now. And we've got some very good cost-efficient, larger product that has been working very nicely for us and it's penciled on our new land acquisition. So every market is challenging. They always are. In general, while this market is challenging, it feels like while we have the same competition from publics that we always do, got a little less from privates, so we feel pretty good about the outlook on land acquisition in all of our markets, including even a hot market like Phoenix.

J. Larry Sorsby

Analyst

And we're staying -- I think the main point, Alex, is that even in a hot market like Phoenix, we are not assuming any home price appreciation or base improvement. We're staying disciplined to our current home prices, current home paces, current construction costs. If it gets to a 25% unlevered IRR, we'll do it. If it doesn't, we don't win the bid.

Ara K. Hovnanian

Analyst

Well, thank you all very much. We're pleased with the results we are able to report this quarter, and we look forward to some great calls in 2013 as well. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our conference call for today. Thank you for participating, and have a nice day. All parties may now disconnect.