M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:MDC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Bob Martin: Yeah. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that that’s the way the math would work out. I think you calculated roughly six per community at this point as you look at what is currently on balance sheet. So to see it migrate up or to a greater percentage of the homes we have under construction at any given point in time, I think it’s a reasonable assumption.

Stephen Kim: Great. Well, I appreciate the color. Thanks very much.

Operator: The next question comes from Truman Patterson with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Truman Patterson: Hey. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. And Larry, please don’t tap the Fed over the low unemployment rate. So Bob, just hoping you can give us a little color on January trends. When I’m looking at your fourth quarter orders, clearly, you had elevated cancellation rates, but now you’re making changes to your spec strategy. You’re pushing incremental incentives. Clearly, it’s kind of muddied right now. So I’m hoping you could just let us understand how January is trending regarding orders maybe on a year-over-year basis? And how you all are kind of thinking about 1Q?

Bob Martin: Yeah. So year-over-year, I think it’s a little confusing, Truman, because we were still in a period of time where rates were really low. So I’m not sure that’s a really fair comparison. But versus December, and keep in mind, December was our best orders month, both gross and net for the fourth quarter. So relative to December, for January, I expect both gross and net orders to exceed our December activity. And that’s with a lower number of cancellations in January relative to December. So that’s something that we’d really like to see.

Truman Patterson: Okay. Thank you. And again, I realize seasonality is a little strange right now, but would you characterize January as above normal seasonality as we sit today?

Bob Martin: It’s tough to really peg seasonality at January versus December when you’re coming off of a very simultuous time, but I would say it certainly gives us a good bit of optimism going into spring.

Truman Patterson: Okay. Perfect. And then any chance you could help us quantify the magnitude of any potential cost tailwinds you’re experiencing as of like today’s starts, I realize lumber is down meaningfully year-over-year. It might have popped back up some recently, but hoping you can help us think through some of the potential cost savings outside of lumber.

Bob Martin: I think those are still materializing. We might, I think, relative to the peak be in the 4% to 5% range outside of lumber. But as you indicated, really lumber is the biggest potential tailwind at this point.

Truman Patterson: All right. Thank you, all. Good luck in the upcoming quarter.

Operator: The next question comes from Michael Rehaut with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Participant: Hi. This is Andrew (ph) on behalf for Mike. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to ask if you would be able to give any color on the potential for any future land impairments or how we should be thinking about that?

Bob Martin: Land impairments is an analysis we do on a quarterly basis. And really, one of the biggest contributing factor is pricing and whether that’s base pricing or incentives. So to the extent that we have a decrease in base pricing or an increase in incentives that is significant, we could realize additional impairments just as we did in Q4. So not really much more to say about it than that. We try to be very thorough every quarter going through our assets and making sure we do a very thorough analysis and take the impairments as appropriate.