Good morning and thank you for joining us today for Hovnanian Enterprises Fiscal 2023 Second Quarter 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. Management will make some opening remarks about the second quarter results and then open the line for questions. The company will also be webcasting a slide presentation along with the opening comments from management. The slides are available on the Investor page of the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should now log on to the website. I would now like to turn the call over to Jeff O'Keefe, Vice President, Investor Relations. Jeff, please go ahead. Jeff O’Keefe: Thank you, Lydia and thank you all for participating in this morning's call to review the results for our second quarter which ended April 30, 2023. All statements in this conference call that are not historical facts should be considered as forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. 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. Such forward-looking statements include but are not limited to, statements related to the company's goals and expectations with respect to its financial results for future financial periods. 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. By their nature, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, are not guarantees of future performance or results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict or quantify. Therefore, actual results could differ materially and adversely from those forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors are described in detail in the sections entitled Risk Factors and Management's Discussion and Analysis, particularly the portion of MD&A entitled Safe harbor Statement in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2022 and subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 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. Joining me today are Ara Hovnanian, Chairman, President and CEO; Larry Sorsby, Executive Vice President and CFO; and Brad O'Connor, Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer. I'll now turn the call over to Ara.

Thanks, Jeff. I'm going to review our second quarter results and I'll comment on the current housing environment. Larry Sorsby, our CFO, will follow me with more details and we'll open it up to Q&A after. On Slide 5, as usual, we compare our quarter results to our guidance. Considering the doubling of mortgage rates, the turmoil in the banking industry, concerns about inflation, federal debt ceiling caps, a war in Ukraine and general economic uncertainty, we are pleased that we exceeded the high end of our guidance for all but one of the metrics we gave for the second quarter. Total revenues of $704 million, SG&A of 10.7% and adjusted EBITDA of $87 million were all better than the high end of our guidance range. Adjusted pretax income of $46 million also exceeded the top end of our range, in this case, by over 30%. We experienced strong demand for quick move-in homes which resulted in higher deliveries, revenues and profits for the second quarter but it also resulted in a slightly lower adjusted gross margin than we projected earlier, particularly as the majority of our QMIs were in the West which currently has lower margins. In sales recently, the spread between QMIs and to-be-built margins has narrowed and we're working hard to narrow it further. Due to the slower housing sales environment last year as mortgage rates rose rapidly, we increased our use of concessions and we started more quick move-in homes last summer. These steps spurred demand and allowed us to achieve higher-than-anticipated home deliveries and profits during the quarter. On Slide 6, we compare our results for this year's second quarter to the same period last year. The comparisons are challenging given that last year's margins and profits were particularly good. Starting in the upper left-hand…

Thanks, Ara. I'm going to start with Slide 17. You can see that we ended the quarter with 128 communities open for sale. Wholly owned communities grew 12% year-over-year to 114. Utility company delays continued to slow down our ability to open new communities. If not for these delays, our number of communities open for sale would have been even higher. During the rapid increase in mortgage rates last summer, we suspended most new land acquisitions. As a result, on Slide 18, we show that our lot count peaked in the second quarter of fiscal '22 at 33,501 lots controlled. During each of the subsequent quarters, our lot count modestly decreased and we ended the second quarter of fiscal '23 with 28,657 lots. Given our recent increase in sales pace, our land teams have jumped back into the market quickly and are once again actively negotiating new land parcels that meet our underwriting standards. We have already experienced success in our new land acquisition efforts and our corporate land committee calendars continue to fill up. By using current home prices, current construction cost and current sales pace to underwrite to a 20-plus percent internal rate of return, our underwriting standards automatically self-adjust to changes in market conditions. We think our outlook for future deliveries is very bright, given the increase in new communities and the solid pace in contracts per community compared to last year. Given the return to a more normalized sales pace and our planned increase in community count, we anticipate returning to top line growth in fiscal '24. On Slide 19, we show our percentage of lots controlled by option increased from 45% in the second quarter of fiscal '15 to 71% in the second quarter of fiscal '23. This has been a focus of our land…

And our first question coming from the line Jesse Lederman with Zelman & Associates.

Congrats on the strong results. You gave some really great info, particularly on the absorption pace. And looking at Slide 11, it's clear that the second quarter was particularly strong. And on a seasonally adjusted basis, right around your historical level. I do notice that May did pick a touch lower from April on a seasonally adjusted basis. I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on why you think that may have occurred? Was it rates rising through the month? What did you see there that may have resulted in a slight drop in that metric?

I'll try to tackle that. Several things. First, May is seasonally normally a little slower month. Maybe more important May only had 4 Sundays, April had 5 Sundays, that makes a big difference. Finally, if you turn to Slide 12, we separate the normal contracts per community in our for-sale communities from our BFR sales. And what you see is if you put the BFR sales aside, April was actually almost identical to May, I mean, 0.1 difference in sales per community. So it's actually surprisingly resilient and steady right now. There was a lot of variation in BFRs. In April, we were about -- we had about 5 BFRs community and -- per community. And in May, we -- the benefit was only 1.1. So that also makes a difference.

And I'll add one additional point to that. May is not over. So we still have a couple more days of sales to report. So I wouldn't be surprised when we actually have full month of May that it isn't equal to April on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, excluding BFRs, if not even a touch higher potentially which is unusual. So I would say May is quite strong comparatively.

That's very helpful. Just one quick follow-up on the BFR side, are you seeing anything? I know your BFR sales absorptions were a little lower in May. And I'm sure some of that may be timing related. Are you seeing, in terms of ebb and flow of demand from that particular buyer, how does that look? Are they becoming more aggressive or pulling back relative to the prior few months?

Interestingly, it's kind of followed the pattern of normal for-sale communities. It slowed towards the last half of '22. Mortgage rates for our normal customers went up but they also went up on the build-for-rent buyers as well. So a lot of them went to the sidelines for a bit. But as the market, in fact, picked up at the beginning of the calendar year, it seemed like the appetite for build for rent investors also picked up. So we're seeing that as a good little supplement to our normal business. It is choppier, though, because it depends on what transactions happened in a particular month. So it will be volatile and you can kind of see that on Slide 12. But overall, we're optimistic about the long-term demand for build for rent and we anticipate strategically making it a more important part of our overall portfolio.

That's helpful. And if I could just squeeze in one more. You mentioned the spread between your quick move-in homes and your to-be-built homes. The gross margin has narrowed. Could you just maybe quantify where the gross margin on each of those products stands today? And where you kind of see it going?

It varies dramatically community by community. If you look at some places in the mid-Atlantic or Delaware or Southeast Coastal where in some of those markets and some of those communities were the QMIs and the build for rent -- excuse me, the build -- sorry, to-be-built, have identical margins. There is a 0 variance in other locations -- in a couple, believe it or not, we have a premium for QMIs and in others, more historically, similar to what we're experiencing primarily in the West, we see a little discount for QMIs versus to-be-built. So it's just a very different picture by community and by geography. Overall, though the blended delta has been narrowing recently.

When you say narrowing, you mean --

A spread between a to-be-built margin which is typically higher than compared to a quick move in margin.

Got it. So you're seeing spec or quick move-in margins accelerate more rapidly of late than the to-be-built margin?

Well, yes. And more specifically, again, the margin difference between to-be-built and QMIs is narrowing. So even if we're both going up, yes, they're going -- that spread is less.

And I would say part of it is related to just training our sales associates. The value that a quick move-in home is to a consumer today. Most consumers value having a quick move-in home so that they can lock in their mortgage payment at a reasonable rate as compared to to-be-built so that we're shifting the kind of psychological historical, hey, we've got to discount a quick move in to move it to, hey, those are more in demand than to-be-built, so we shouldn't be discounting them at all. So it's a shift in culture for us. We've not historically been a big builder of quick move in homes. And I think some of that training is starting to kick in. And as Ara mentioned, we're seeing that spread narrow and hopefully, it will continue to narrow.

And our next question coming from the line of Jordan Hymowitz with Philadelphia Financial Management of San Francisco, LLC.

I have 2 questions. One, you spoke about continued debt pay down and you have a tremendous amount of cash now on the balance sheet. And last year, you paid down $200 million, if I remember correctly. Would that be a possibility this year as well?

I don't think we're putting out any guidance on when we're going to reduce debt again. I mean, we're going to balance it between making investments in land to fuel further growth. At the same time, we want to strengthen our balance sheet. Suffice it to say, over future periods, whether it's this year or not, I'm just not prepared to comment on, we will be reducing debt.

And which debt did you reduce of the $100 million which interest rate?

The 7.75% were required by bank -- I mean, excuse me, by debt covenants to pay that one down first. That certainly wouldn't have been our preference. If we had the flexibility to buy down the higher coupon, we would have done so but covenants restrict us to paying off early that one first.

And what would be the next one you could pay down?

The same. Well, we still have to pay off the balance of the 7.75%.

Yes, I mean, that $150 million is left on that. So we'd have to pay down $150 million. After the $150 million, Brad, what's the next coupon if you know? Brad O’Connor: It's the next lien in -- so I think it's a 10.5%, Larry.

Perfect. And my last question is, you guys don't pay any cash taxes. Should I assume that that's correct for the next year or so? So in other words, one of the reasons your book value is growing faster as well as -- and your cash flow is better because there's no cash taxes?

Do you want to take it, Brad? Brad O’Connor: Sure. I mean, the answer to your question is, we won't be paying any federal taxes. We do pay some state taxes. But it doesn't change our book value, the deferred tax asset that is being used at the time that it's basically an asset offsets the payable associated with taxes. So it's already in our book value.

And our next question coming from the line of Alex Barron with Housing Research Center.

I guess continuing on what Jordan was asking. So if you guys have to pay the debt down in the order of these liens and you've got 2025 debt coming due, wouldn't it be beneficial to you to just continue to pay down debt continuously, assuming that if interest rates don't come down and don't give you an opportunity to refi otherwise?

I mean we're -- I think we've sent a pretty strong message that we're returning to our debt reduction kind of slide path. So we do intend to allocate some capital to future debt reductions in future periods. At the same time, we continue to always monitor the high-yield market to see when it might be a good time to potentially refinance some of our capital structure as well.

I mean, overall, again, with the pattern, we reduced debt 2 years ago, a couple of hundred million dollars. We reduced debt last year, a couple of hundred million dollars. We just reduced $100 million this quarter. So our plans are certainly to stay on that trend. At the moment, though, there's a lot of uncertainty in the economy, as we've discussed many times in our call. So we're staying on the more conservative side with more cash than we really need on our balance sheet right now. But I'd anticipate as things smoothing out in the economy that we're going to be continuing our trajectory of debt reduction.

Yes. Because I mean, I get the conservatism and -- but at the same time, it seems economically, just all the interest savings are increasing your earnings and book value you invest in. So hopefully, that will continue on that path.

Yes. We agree.

Okay. On the issue of DTA and taxes, the $12 million that you posted this quarter, is that just for accounting purposes? Or is there actual payment that you're making just for state purposes or something like that?

It's -- so what happens now that we no longer have -- the DTA is now on our books. If you remember, several years ago, it was fully reserved. And so as you had income, you wouldn't show any tax expense now because the reserve has gone, the asset is on our books. You show on the income statement, the expense associated with the income, you just don't pay it because you then offset the receivable. That's why you see it as an expense. So it's a non -- effectively a non-cash expense.

Okay. So going forward, we can assume you'll be showing that but the true earnings power is the pretax income?

Right. From a cash flow perspective, correct. That's right.

Thank you. And I'm showing no further questions. Actually I'm showing Jordan just queue up.

Yes. Just one quick follow-up. So even if you don't pay down the debt, eventually, you guys are going to try and do a global debt refinancing. And can you talk a little bit about what your total net debt to EBITDA has trended down to at this point? And how lenders tend to look at that?

I don't have that stat at my fingertips. Brad, you or Jeff? Brad O’Connor: No, not in front of us. No.

But I think it's -- suffice it to say, Jordan, with our improving sales pace, our increasing outlook for profits, both in the third and fourth quarter this year and the trend in the high-yield market starting to see the window crack open a little bit. I think that the bond market at some point will be receptive to us and other homebuilders potentially doing new issuance and we're just going to closely monitor it. And at the appropriate time, when we feel comfortable and the market is open, we will take the right steps to refinance some of our capital structure. I don't think we'd want to do a global refinance of the whole thing because, again, we want to further strengthen our balance sheet, further pay down debt and we don't want to have huge prepayment penalties. So we would not refinance our entire stack. We would do something less than our entire stack with our intent to pay off debt going forward.

But again, overall, we have about 3 years remaining before the bulk of our debt is due. So we're focused. We don't have our gun to our head. And in the meantime, we're storing up more cash than normal but we certainly anticipate we'll have good opportunities sometime over the next 3 years to refinance.

The last question is, if you don't pay down any more debt this year, how much additional cash will you generate?

I don't think we made a projection on that either, Jordan. So I think you see the trend historically for us is the fourth quarter is a big quarter for us in terms of deliveries that generally generates strong cash flow and I think our liquidity will be well above the high end of our targeted range at year-end. And I think that's about as much guidance as we can give you.

Jordan, we did fund at the end of the first quarter, we don't have it updated for the second quarter. But at the end of the first quarter on a trailing 12 months basis, the net debt to adjusted EBITDA was at 2.2x, down significantly from where we were in 2019 of 8.9x.

Got it. Yes, if you could update that slide, maybe that would be helpful.

Sure.

Very good. Any last questions, operator?

I'm showing no further questions at this time.

Very good. Well, thank you all very much. We're pleased with the current environment and we look forward to sharing some more continued good news in future quarters. Thank you.

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