D.R. Horton, Inc. (NYSE:DHI) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Matthew Bouley: Morning everyone. Thank you for taking the questions. Want to ask about the construction cost environment, I think I heard you say at the top that you were making some progress but I’m paraphrasing but perhaps not expecting to see as much benefit on the construction cost side on homes close through fiscal 2023? Obviously some of your peers have sort of quantified, some of the benefits they might already be seeing on the construction cost side. So, just curious if you can parse that out a little bit as you guys sort of aggregate market share as we think about, your ability to press on costs here? Thank you.

Mike Murray: We’ve been really successful working with a lot of our trade partners in lowering our cost. And we’ve gotten a little bit of tailwind from certainly from the lumber price reductions that have occurred, but it just takes a while for those cost changes on the front end to actually show up in the closing, especially with the more recently prolonged build times. So, it’s just a function of the calendar working those new cost structures through the pipeline. So, the deliveries we see in 2003 were largely, first half of the year especially started in fiscal 2022 in a different cost environment.

Jessica Hansen: And typically lumber prices go up as we move throughout the spring. So although we’re seeing a benefit from lumber today, if typical seasonality holds, lumber would actually be a headwind against the cost reductions that we are seeing on those new home starts that Mike just alluded to.

Matthew Bouley: Okay. Got you. Thank you for that color. And then second one, just following up around the pricing environment. As you’ve seen some of your peers enacted, I guess, different strategies around pricing versus pace here. And perhaps as we get into the spring, we might expect to see some builders on the ground react more aggressively on the pricing side versus — I would argue you guys have been leading that first, I guess. So as we get into the spring, what are your expectations or perhaps what are you seeing on the ground right now around your competition and price reductions and would you expect to see another leg lower on the pricing and margin side through all that? Thank you.

David Auld: We have still addressed our incentives with a balance of rate buy-downs, financial incentives, along with adjusting price community by community to drive the returns that we’re looking for. As we enter into the spring selling season, we’re seeing some seasonality that we’re happy with as the market starts to lead and we’ll continue to adjust to drive the absorptions by community.

Matthew Bouley: All right. Thank you very much, and good luck.

Operator: Thank you. And the next question is coming from John Lovallo from UBS. John, your line is live.

John Lovallo: Good morning guys, and thanks for taking my questions. The first one is you mentioned the first few weeks of January saw increased activity, can you maybe just elaborate a little bit on that and maybe frame it sequentially or year-over-year? And how were incentives in the first few weeks of January relative to December?

Jessica Hansen: Yeah. So we talked about on the call that we do expect to see normal seasonality in terms of the move from Q1 to Q2 sales. And so what we saw in terms of the increased sales activity in the first few weeks of January was a positive early indicator. It is still too early to ultimately say what’s going to happen this spring, but it gave us the confidence to say that we could see normal seasonality, which typically would be about 50% up from Q1 to Q2 in terms of net sales orders. We also did see a slight improvement, it’s only a few weeks, which doesn’t make a quarter, but we’ve seen a slight improvement in our cancellation rate in January as well, which also helps give us the confidence to say an increased level of net sales orders in Q2 versus Q1.

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