Pultegroup Inc

NYSE:PHM

Earnings Call Analysis

PulteGroup Reports Strong Growth Amid Variable Interest Rates

PulteGroup achieved a 16% increase in third-quarter earnings, driven by a 12% rise in closings to 7,924 homes. The average sales price was stable at $548,000, while gross margins were strong at 28.8%. For the fourth quarter, guidance indicates gross margins might drop to 27.5%-27.8% due to higher incentives and changing market dynamics. Shareholder returns totaled $1 billion year-to-date, reflecting a commitment to capital return despite market challenges. Looking ahead, the company is optimistic, aiming for continued growth and anticipating closing 31,000 homes by year-end.

Strong Growth in Financial Performance

In the third quarter of 2024, PulteGroup reported a 16% year-over-year increase in earnings, reaching $3.35 per share, driven primarily by a 12% rise in home closings. The company has successfully achieved double-digit increases in closings, home sale revenues, and pretax income, with reported earnings for the first three quarters of the year rising 22% to $10.28 per share. Importantly, over the last 12 months, PulteGroup generated a return on equity of 27%. The robust financial performance has also allowed for significant shareholder returns of $1 billion, marking a 25% increase from the previous year【4:2†source】.

Navigating Economic Fluctuations

PulteGroup's impressive results come amidst a fluctuating economic backdrop, particularly concerning mortgage rates which have varied throughout 2024. Beginning the year at 6.75%, rates peaked at 7.5% in April before dropping to 6% in September, only to rise again to around 6.75%. This volatility impacts consumer sentiment and purchasing decisions. The company’s data indicates a clear link between mortgage rate movements and buyer activity, particularly in September when they saw elevated interest due to falling rates【4:1†source】【4:2†source】.

Strategic Management of Gross Margins

In Q3, PulteGroup's gross margin was a strong 28.8%, although pressures from increased incentive costs—rising to 7%—have been acknowledged. The need for higher incentives reflects competitive market dynamics. Forward-looking guidance indicates that the gross margin for Q4 is expected to be between 27.5% and 27.8%, with an approximate annual gross margin projected at around 29%. The shifts stem from a higher percentage of closings from Western markets and the need to maintain sales momentum【4:3†source】【4:4†source】.

Investment in Land and Community Growth

For ongoing growth, PulteGroup aims to invest approximately $5 billion in land acquisition and development in 2024, contributing to a total of over $20 billion in the last five years. By the end of Q3, they had 235,000 lots under control, with a goal to increase the percentage of these through options to 70%. This strategic land banking initiative is designed to enhance balance sheet efficiency and maximize returns【4:5†source】【4:8†source】.

Operating with Increased Efficiency

The company has successfully reduced its average cycle time for home delivery from 123 days to 114 days in Q3, aiming to reach a goal of 110 days by year-end 2024 and 100 days in early 2025. This efficiency is crucial for meeting consumer demand and managing production more effectively, especially as nearly 58% of sales in Q3 originated from spec homes【4:5†source】【4:4†source】.

Looking Ahead: Challenges and Opportunities

Despite the strong performance, the company recognizes challenges due to increasing mortgage rates and ongoing affordability concerns for potential buyers. The upcoming spring selling season is projected to provide clearer insights into housing demand dynamics. Moving forward, PulteGroup remains committed to balancing margin profitability while remaining competitively priced in the market【4:2†source】【4:12†source】.

Continued Commitment to Shareholder Returns

Reflecting its strong cash flows and financial health, PulteGroup continued to return capital to shareholders, with plans to keep this trend consistent. The company successfully repurchased shares throughout the year and ended the period with over $1 billion remaining on its current repurchase authorization【4:5†source】【4:18†source】.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning. My name is Audra, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the PulteGroup, Inc. Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Jim Zeumer. Please go ahead.

[James Zeumer, executive]

Thank you, Audra, and good morning. I want to welcome all participants to today's earnings call to review PulteGroup's operating and financial performance the company's third quarter ended September 30, 2024. Here to review PulteGroup's Q3 results are Ryan Marshall, President and CEO; Bob O'Shaughnessy Executive Vice President and CFO; and Jim Ossowski, Senior Vice President, Finance.

A copy of our earnings release and this morning's presentation slides have been posted to our corporate website at pultegroup.com. We will post an audio replay of this call later today. I want to learn everyone that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements about the company's expected future performance. Actual results could differ materially from those suggested by our comments made today.

The most significant risk factors that could affect future results are summarized as part of today's earnings release and within the accompanying presentation slides. These risk factors and other key information are detailed in our SEC filings, including our annual and quarterly reports. Now let me turn the call over to Ryan Marshall. Ryan?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Thanks, Jim. I appreciate everyone joining our call this morning as we discuss another quarter of strong operating and financial results for PulteGroup. As detailed in this morning's press release, driven primarily by a 12% increase in closings, we reported a 16% year-over-year increase in third quarter earnings to $3.35 per share, inclusive of our strong Q3 financial performance for the first 3 quarters of 2024, PulteGroup has realized double-digit increases in closings, home sale revenues and pretax income along with a 22% increase in reported earnings to $10.28 per share. In addition to delivering significant growth in revenues and earnings, for the trailing 12-month period, PulteGroup realized a return on equity of 27% while continuing to drive strong cash flow and lowering our debt to capital ratio to 12%.

Our strong financial performance also allowed us to continue returning funds to shareholders. Through the first 9 months of 2024, we returned $1 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. This is an increase of $200 million or 25% from last year in terms of funds allocated back to our investors.

I think these numbers are all the more impressive given the fluctuating macro backdrop that we've all been working through. Over the course of the year, we have seen the 30-year mortgage rates climbed from 6.75% in January, 7.5% in April only to fall back to 6% in September. And then, of course, the recent climb in interest rates back to 6.75% has the 30-year mortgage rate back to where we started 2024. We track consumer sentiment among visitors to our website and our communities and as you might expect, buyer confidence ebbs and flows with meaningful changes or even just volatility in interest rates.

This again proved to be the case as buyers reacted to the movement in rates during the third quarter. With mortgage rates at around 6.5% to begin the third quarter, buyers were generally [indiscernible] a purchase agreement. As interest rates declined through August and September, however, we experienced a noticeable pickup in overall activity. In fact, of the 3 months in the quarter, we generated the highest net new orders and absorption paces in the month of September.

Driven by September strong performance, the Q3 absorption pace of 2.4 orders per community per month was certainly above the typical pre-COVID numbers for the third quarter. The recent October has shown the highest web traffic, foot traffic and lead volume of the year. However, the recent rise in interest rates has demonstrated a more typical seasonal selling patterns and incentives have remained elevated as a consequence.

Between rate volatility, the impact of hurricanes and the upcoming presidential election, I think the upcoming spring selling season will offer the best assessment of fundamental housing demand. I think buyer reaction to the movement in rates, both down and now up again, affirms that affordability remains a tough hurdle to get over for many potential homebuyers.

The most recent S&P [indiscernible] Index shows home prices continue to hit all-time new highs, although the rate of appreciation has slowed, which in combination with expected lower mortgage rates, could offer some relief to consumers going forward. As has been discussed extensively over the past few years, one of the pressure points that continue to push home prices higher is the fact that after years of underbuilding, this country has a housing deficit estimated at several million homes.

The Mortgage Bankers Association issued a useful graphic a few weeks ago that is shown on Slide 15 in today's webcast slides. The graph shows housing stock out of by decades since the 1940s. Looking at the graph, you can clearly see the significant drop in production during the past 15 years. To make this point even clear, we modified the MBA graph by overlaying the growth in U.S. population over the decades.

What you see is that just since the 1960s, our country's population has almost doubled to just shy of 350 million people, while housing production has been flat to down over the decades. Given the high cost of homeownership, rate buydowns remain a powerful incentive in helping consumers bridge the affordability gap.

In the third quarter, approximately 30% of our homebuyers accessed our national rate program. To take advantage of our national rate incentive homebuyers will typically need to close within 30 to 60 days of signing a contract. So it's important that we continue to have an inventory of homes in production. At the end of the third quarter, 43% of the homes in production were specs. So we are well positioned to meet demand as we close out 2024.

Along with benefiting from having inventory available, we are also continuing to make progress in lowering our cycle times. For homes delivered in the third quarter, our average cycle time was 114 days, down from 123 days in this year's second quarter. Cutting 2 weeks out of our production time line is an important accomplishment and it keeps us on track to reach our goal of 110 days by year-end and be at 100 days in the first part of 2025.

In truth, most of our divisions are already operating at or close to our 100-day ideal target. Our reported average is higher due to a handful of divisions, primarily those with large multifamily business or cycle times remain elevated. In summary, operationally and financially, we accomplished a lot in the third quarter and are well positioned to have 2024 be a record year for PulteGroup. Now let me turn the call over to Bob for a review of our third quarter results.

[Robert Shaughnessy, executive]

Thanks, Ryan, and good morning. Driven by strong closing volumes, our third quarter wholesale revenues increased 12% over last year to $4.3 billion. Our higher revenues in the period reflect a 12% increase in closings to 7,924 homes, while our average sales price in the quarter of $548,000 is effectively unchanged from the prior year and the second quarter of this year.

Average sales prices by [ Bayer Group ] were also consistent with the prior year. The mix of our closings in the third quarter was 40% first time, 39% [indiscernible] up and 21% active adult. In the third quarter of last year, the mix of closings was 38%, first time, 37% move-up and 25% active adult. The slight decline in the percentage of closings from active adult buyers primarily reflects the timing of active adult community closeouts in '23 and '24, and we noted in our sign-up commentary during our second quarter earnings call. We expect the normalization of contribution from our active adult consumers on replacement active adult communities begin opening in 2025.

Looking at our orders, net new orders in the third quarter totaled 731 homes, which is consistent with the 7,065 net new orders recorded in the third quarter of last year. It's worth noting that our average monthly absorption pace of 2.4 homes in the current quarter remains higher than our historic third quarter pre-COVID average, which was closer to 2.2 homes per month.

Within the quarter, we did see a positive impact on monthly orders and interest rates declined from July through September. Compared with the prior year, Q3 orders decreased 3% for first-time buyers increased 6% for move-up buyers and decreased 5% for active adult buyers. Consistent with our guide, we operated out of an average of 957 communities during the quarter, which is an increase of just under 4% compared with the third quarter of last year.

Phase 1 activity during the quarter, order end backlog was 12,089 homes with a value of $7.7 [ billion ] which compares with the backlog of 13,547 homes with a value of $8.1, [ billion ] at the end of the third quarter last year. During the quarter, we started approximately 7,800 homes and ended the quarter with a total of 17,096 homes under construction. These numbers are consistent with Q3 of last year. At the end of the quarter, we had approximately 7,400 spec homes in production, of which 1,357 homes were complete.

This represents about 1.4 finished specs per community, which is consistent with the second quarter of this year. On a unit basis, 58% of our third quarter sales were spec sales, highlighting the importance of having inventory available to meet buyer demand. Buyer interest in spec production has been driven in part by our successful use of mortgage incentives, which are most effective when the consumer expects to close quickly.

As always, we will continue to closely monitor consumer preferences for any changes if mortgage rates continue to decline. Based on the units we have under construction and the current stage of production, we currently expect to close between 7,900 and 8,300 homes in the fourth quarter. I would highlight that this keeps us on track to meet or slightly exceed our full year closing target of 31,000 homes.

Given the affordability challenges facing today's home buying consumers, and evolving market dynamics in key cities in which we operate, our pricing strategy seeks to ensure we maintain a compelling offering to all consumers. With that said, our average sales price in the third quarter was $548,000 which is consistent with our guidance for average pricing to be in the range of $540,000, $550,000.

Looking at the fourth quarter, we currently expect our average sales price to be in a higher range of $555,000 and to $565,000. As we have discussed on prior calls, this is largely due to a higher percentage of our closings coming from our Western markets, where selling prices are above company average. Our third quarter gross margin came in at a strong 28.8%.

As we highlighted during our most recent earnings call, our margins in this quarter reflect an increasing percentage of our closings coming from our Western markets, which relative to other parts of our business at slightly lower margins. Our third quarter margins were also impacted by higher incentive costs incurred during the period. Incentives in the third quarter were 7%, which is a sequential increase of 70 basis points from the second quarter of this year.

Given competitive market dynamics, higher incentives were needed to help ensure we continue to sell homes and turn our assets. As Ryan talked about, higher demand improved as interest rates declined in the third quarter, but overall market dynamics remain competitive. As such, we expect incentives to remain elevated for at least the remainder of the year. Given the anticipated geographic and product mix of fourth quarter closings and the expected need to maintain higher incentives, we currently expect gross margin in the fourth quarter to be in the range of 27.5% to 27.8%.

Based on our fourth quarter guide, our full year gross margin would amount to approximately 29%. Continuing down the income statement, our reported SG&A expense in the third quarter was $407 million or 9.4% of home sale revenues. This compares with prior year SG&A expense of $353 million or 9.1% of home sale revenues. Our third quarter SG&A expense was in line with previous guidance and keeps us on track for SG&A expense of 9.2% to 9.5% of wholesale revenues for the full year.

I would note that our full year guide excludes the impact of the insurance adjustments we recorded in the first and second quarters of this year. Our financial services operations reported another quarter of strong operating and financial results as third quarter pretax income increased 90% over last year to $55 million. For the quarter, our financial services operations benefited from increased volume driven by the higher closing volumes in our homebuilding business in combination with approved capture rates.

In addition, we experienced increased profitability particularly in our mortgage operations due to improving market conditions driving higher margin performance. In total for the quarter, we reported pretax income of $906 million which represents an increase of 7% over the third quarter of last year.

Our tax expense for the quarter was $208 million or an effective tax rate of 23%. Our effective tax rate for the quarter includes a $14 million benefit associated with the purchase of renewable energy tax credits completed in the quarter. In the fourth quarter, we expect our tax rate to be in the range of 24% to 24.5% excluding the impact of any potential incremental energy tax credit purchases.

Looking at the bottom line, our reported net income was $698 million or $3.35 per share representing increases of 9% and 16%, respectively, over the third quarter of last year. Earnings per share in the third quarter was calculated based on approximately 208 million diluted shares outstanding which is down 5% from the prior year as the company continued to systematically executed share repurchase program.

Consistent with our stated strategies, we continue to allocate incremental capital to the future growth of our homebuilding platform. In the third quarter, we invested $1.4 billion in land acquisition and development, of which 56% was for the development of existing land assets. On a year-to-date basis, we have invested $3.7 billion in land acquisition and development and now expect our full year spend to be in the range of $5 billion to $5.2 billion as our land teams continue to do an exceptional job identifying and structuring land investments that meet our strict underwriting guidelines.

Inclusive of our land spend in the quarter, we ended the quarter with approximately 235,000 lots under control, of which 56% were held via option. We continue to make steady progress in increasing the percentage of our land that we control via option as we seek to drive greater balance sheet efficiency and support of higher returns in the future. Based on our land pipeline and the expected timing of community openings and closings, we currently expect to operate out of an average of 950 communities in the fourth quarter, which would represent an increase of 3% over the fourth quarter of last year.

In addition to investing in the ongoing growth of our business, we continue to consistently return capital to shareholders. In the third quarter, we repurchased 2.5 million common shares at a cost of $320 million or an average price of $126.5 per share. Through the first 9 months of the year, we have repurchased 7.6 million shares or approximately 4% of our shares outstanding at the beginning of the year at a cost of $880 million or $115.74 per share.

Following these repurchases, we ended the period with just over $1 billion remaining on our existing repurchase authorization. And finally, we ended the third quarter with a gross debt-to-capital ratio of 12.3%. Adjusting for the $1.5 billion of cash on our balance sheet, our net debt to capital ratio was 1.4%. Now let me turn the call back to Ryan for some final comments.

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Thanks, Bob. I'm very proud of our organization as our local and national teams have done a great job navigating the ups and downs of 2024. Within such an environment, it's more important than ever that we continue to focus on the critical business strategies and tactics that have been instrumental to our success.

First, we are continuing to invest in our business. We expect to invest just over $5 billion in land acquisition and development this year, underwriting to the same return hurdles and guidelines that we've had in place for more than a decade. Our disciplined process has allowed us to assemble a robust pipeline of what we believe are well located and high-returning projects.

In the process of underwriting new deals, we continue our migration toward controlling more land via option. This will be a multiyear effort that we see the opportunity for increasing our option lot count as a way to enhance returns and help mitigate market risk. We have a long-term goal of getting to 70% option lots, which will be an evolutionary process as we work through our existing communities and add new option lot deals to the overall portfolio.

Second, while we continue to invest in new land positions, we have to make sure we are efficiently and intelligently turning our existing land assets. Within our business model, we seek to achieve high returns by balancing the desire to maximize profitability of each home while making sure we are turning our land assets. We often use the phrase, we can't be margin proud. The gross margin is an important driver of return on invested capital, and we don't want to give away lots that we've worked hard to secure.

At the same time, we must be price competitive and offer a clear and compelling value to potential homebuyers. I think our third quarter results show this balancing act as we continue to generate historically high gross margins, but we meaningfully increased incentives in response to the more competitive market conditions in which we're currently operating. And third, we must continue to allocate capital in alignment with our long-stated priorities.

As just discussed, we continue to invest in the ongoing growth of our business through land acquisition and development. If we achieve our 2024 land investment target of $5 billion, our 5-year land acquisition and development spend will total more than $20 billion. In a world where not in my backyard is alive and well, such investment represents countless hours of hard work by our land teams throughout the country.

After investing capital to support the ongoing growth of our business, we continue to systematically return funds to shareholders with 2024 being the fourth year in a row in which we will have returned over $1 billion back to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends.

Over $20 billion invested in land, over $4 billion returned to shareholders and all while building a strong and highly supportive balance sheet with low leverage and high liquidity. I strongly believe this is a balance sheet that can support our growth plans as well as continue to see us through the ups and downs of higher demand that inevitably roll through the housing industry.

Let me close by thanking our entire organization for their hard work in delivering PulteGroup's outstanding operating and financial results. Hurricanes made this effort even tougher over the past few months, but I am incredibly proud, although not at all surprised of how our team rallied to support fellow employees directly impacted by these storms. You compassionate efforts are why polity Group remains a great place to work. Now let me turn the call back to Jim.

[James Zeumer, executive]

Great. Thanks, Ryan. We're now prepared to open the call for questions so we can get to as many questions as possible for the remaining time of this call. We ask limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Thank you. And I'll now ask Audra to again explain the process and open the call for questions. Audra?

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We'll go first to John Lovallo at UBS.

[John Lovallo, analyst]

The first one is maybe just help us on the sequential walk in gross margin from 28.8% in the third quarter to the range of 27.5% to 28% in the fourth quarter. Does that assume an incremental step-up in incentives what is sort of the breakout between the headwind from incentives versus mix?

[Robert Shaughnessy, executive]

John, I think it's reflective of the current market that we're operating in. We highlighted in the commentary as it relates to Q3, coming into the quarter, we had given the guide and said that incentives would be flat. Obviously, they were a little bit richer than we had expected. We had a lot of homes to sell in the third quarter.

The activity that we have seen has had that higher incentive load. We still have homes to sell in the fourth quarter. So it really is just a function of what we're seeing on the ground today. Another thing more broadly that impacts this is the slight step down in the active adult as a percentage of the mix and so we're -- we highlighted during the second quarter that we saw some closeouts. And so we've got some -- for lack of better word, gap outs and active adult.

So you've seen the percentage of our total business in active adult shrink a couple of basis points. That obviously has the highest margin contribution. So it's a combination of all those factors.

[John Lovallo, analyst]

Understood. Okay. And then Ryan mentioned the hurricanes, obviously, there were pretty devastating storms, Milton really hitting Florida pretty hard and Helene going up into the Carolinas. What is the impact that you guys perhaps saw in the quarter? And what are you kind of contemplating as we move forward here as a potential impact on whether it's deliveries, orders or whatever the case may be.

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes, John, it's Ryan. First thoughts and prayers go out to the communities and the individual families that were impacted by the storms. They were certainly both very large and devastating in different ways. I'd maybe start first by highlighting how well our communities performed both our communities that are in active construction as well as homes that we've recently closed.

The new construction standards and the quality that we build to the way that the drainage systems are designed, I think are a real testament to just how effective some of those standards are. So we had very little damage in our active communities, which is good news. The biggest impact is really 2 things, John. One loss of time so the 3 to 4 days to shut job sites down in advance of the storm and then the 3 to 4 days kind of following the storms with cleanup. Those are days that are just hard to get back.

Power is the second issue. So especially with Milton, the power outages were really widespread in Florida, especially in the Tampa and Southwest Florida areas. So power crews are focused on bringing the power grids back online. They're not as focused on setting new electrical meters or homes that will deliver in Q4.

So we're still kind of working to quantify what those exact numbers are. We're confident in the guide that we'll -- that we've -- that Bob provided to you. And we'll know more, I think, in the coming weeks as the power companies recover. The other maybe kind of third-tier item would be some of the municipalities will be a little slower in responding to inspections as they're dealing with kind of cleanup areas in the hard-hit communities

[Operator]

We'll move next to Alan Ratner at Zelman & Associates.

[Alan Ratner, analyst]

Just following up on the margin guide. You mentioned the mix of the business, active adult, et cetera, and you kind of touched on the storms. But I guess this is kind of like a 2-part question specific to Florida. Your margins in Florida are well above company average. So I'm curious if that's impacting specifically the 4Q numbers, specifically for the guidance.

But kind of more importantly, I guess, if you could just talk a little bit about what you are seeing in Florida outside of the storm impact. There's a lot of concern about rising resell inventory in the market, challenged affordability. And I'm just curious how you guys are thinking about that market relative to your very strong margins, do you think there's an opportunity maybe to take advantage of that with taking share, maybe more incentivizing. Or do you feel like your land position in that market is so strong that you're -- as you mentioned, not looking to give away those lots?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes, Alan, we're actually -- we remain very bullish on Florida. We talked about it a little bit in the end of our second quarter. And on a positive note, we had a great third quarter out of Florida and a lot of the inventory trends both on resale inventory and new inventory have improved, and they're down from where things peak. So I think that's a positive in a quarter, which is typically one of the slower quarters in Florida as you end the nicer weather summer months up north.

As we move into the fourth quarter and we get into what is the traditional shoulder season in Florida, where the snowbirds start coming back into town, I think we're well positioned to have a pretty good fourth quarter. So we're in every major city or almost every major city in Florida. We don't do a lot of business in Miami. But where -- our brands are really strong there. We've got great communities. So I think Florida will continue to be a positive for us.

[Robert Shaughnessy, executive]

Yes, Alan, it's interesting. You heard Ryan say how well our markets held up there. So we don't see a mix shift in the fourth quarter. Pending, of course, the municipalities ability to actually deliver permits, which we think they will, and we think we'll be able to work through. We had highlighted more of the geography and the margin is really that Western markets have on a relative basis, slightly lower margins for us, and that's going to be a higher percentage in the fourth quarter than it was in the third.

And then it's the incentives on the spec or entry level probably that have more influence. And as we highlighted in the prepared remarks, our expectation is that the incentive levels are going to stay high.

[Alan Ratner, analyst]

Got it. That's helpful, Bob. And you kind of touched on -- you mentioned entry-level higher incentives. I guess more broadly, you guys are one of, if not the most diversified builders from a price point perspective. Can you just drill in a little bit in terms of what you're seeing at the various segments in terms of demand right now between entry, move-up and active adult.

I know you give the numbers on orders, but that doesn't always tell the whole story given community count openings and closings, et cetera.

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes, Alan, I'll take that one. I mentioned in my prepared remarks, in October, and we talked about it on prior calls, we do a survey with buyers that come to our website just about how confident they are about now being a good time to buy. We're at a 12-month high in that number. So I think that's generally a positive sign for the business.

Our website traffic, our lead traffic and our foot traffic into our stores also at 12-month high. So there's a lot of real positive activity in the top of the funnel and September was the best month in the quarter, drilling down into the individual brands, the entry-level buyer continues to be most challenged by affordability. So when rates came down in September, I think we saw a nice pickup in buying power that had a very favorable impact to that particular buyer.

So I think that's a positive. The movement buyer continues to be really strong for us. And with that being 40% of our business, I think we're really well positioned for that consumer group to continue to perform well in the current environment. And if we're fortunate enough to see some improved rates in the next couple of months as we go into spring selling season, I think that particular buyer group will perform very well.

And then active adult, and we've talked about this in years past, this is a buyer group that's probably most impacted by volatility in the market and uncertainty in the market. And right now, the thing that we're hearing the most about is the election. And there's just -- there's a lot of uncertainty around the nonstop garage that we're getting with the election in a couple of weeks.

So we're kind of waiting for the next couple of weeks to be over and we think that buyer will come back into the market shortly thereafter.

[Operator]

And we'll go next to Stephen Kim at Evercore ISI.

[Stephen Kim, analyst]

Appreciate all the information so far. I wanted to focus specifically on timing, I think. You made a couple of comments about what you think may happen next year? I think you indicated that you thought that given the sort of the volatility in buyer demand due to rates that maybe we're really going to have to look to the spring selling season to sort of see how the market is ultimately going to settle out.

And I think you're right on that. I think that the spring selling season is going to be a big focus probably for investors as well. I'm just trying to get a sense for how you might see timing of certain things you've talked about evolve here over the net. What it means for timing, I guess, I should say.

So first of all, you talked about the hurricane impact you think that some of the delays that you felt from that will impact fully -- do you think that there's going to be any spillover into 1Q, particularly as it relates to deliveries, the revenues, you talked about the timing of the active adult gap out.

I think you indicated that you thought that, that would get better in 2025. Can you give us a sense for sort of when in 2025? Are we -- and when, in particular, that might affect like revenues because obviously, these homes may take a while to build. Those are the 2 major ones that I wanted to understand better what you're thinking about from a timing perspective?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes, Stephen, it's Ryan. Thanks for the question. We've given a guide for Q4 that we're confident in. So we think we've factored in kind of our best estimate of what the hurricane-related delays and impacts will be. If things go quicker and better than expected potentially, we get a few more closings in the fourth quarter. But we're confident in the guide that we've given.

Then as it relates to kind of 2025 and spillover impact from the hurricane. We haven't given a guide at this point. We'll do that at the end of next quarter. History is a guide. I think the system will come back online. And other than, again, power-related setting of transformers and energizing communities. Those are the things that I think we sometimes see some delays around.

But we'll tell you more about that as we get closer as it relates to kind of active adult, would also give you our community count guide next year. Those communities have been in the pipeline for a long time. They're actively being developed right now. So we've got great visibility to when they're going to open.

And most of those will start to open in the back half of '25 and then start to show closings in 2026. But we haven't given a guide for 2025 and other than I would reiterate, we've talked about kind of our long-term growth guide of wanting to operate the business in a 5% to 10% growth window.

[Stephen Kim, analyst]

And if we look -- just staying on the active adult side a little bit, it sounds like 2024, most of '24 had maybe a richer mix of active adult than we're going to have in 2025. And just -- and then it will -- sounds like it will become a little richer again. When you're thinking about managing the business over the long term, Ryan, which is more typical of what you think that the product mix, particularly I'm speaking about active adult is likely to be for your company? Are you managing it with the land that you're sort of purchasing today? Are you managing it to more like of a mix of 2024 or more of a mix of 2025?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes, Stephen, we're still running the company and managing the land mix for it to be about 25% of the business. So the current mix in '24 is actually on the light side. And as these new communities where we're in a little bit of a gap out as those come online in 2025, you'll actually -- and Bob mentioned in his prepared remarks, you'll see the mix go back to our kind of typical contribution levels, which is in that 20 -- roughly 25% overall business.

[Stephen Kim, analyst]

Got you. And certainly, as it relates to orders. Okay. I got you. That's helpful.

[Operator]

We'll go next to Anthony Pettinari at Citi.

[Anthony Pettinari, analyst]

I was wondering if you could talk about stick and brick costs in the quarter and then assumptions for 4Q. And it seems like lumber may have been kind of a good guy for part of this year on a year-over-year basis, but it's kind of ticked up recently. Just wondering if you could remind us your lag on lumber prices and any thoughts there?

[Unknown Executive]

Thanks for the question. To be honest, we've experienced minimal inflation on our vertical costs this year. We're running right at $80 a square foot, which is consistent with the last 3 quarters. And actually consistent with the third quarter of last year. So when we look at it for the full year, we expect kind of a very low single-digit inflation on our vertical costs.

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Anthony, as it relates to lumber, it varies by market. Most of our lumber, we buy on a 13-week trailing random length average and effectively helps lock in the margin at the time of contract with the customer so that we're not experiencing margin volatility during the build process.

[Anthony Pettinari, analyst]

Got it. Got it. And then just following up on resale inventories. Ryan, I think you indicated inventories were kind of maybe getting a little bit better or normalizing a bit compared to 3 months ago in Florida. And I was just wondering if there were other markets, Texas or out West, where resale inventories are a little bit elevated or conversely, where markets where inventories feel tight?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes. I wouldn't highlight any other markets in terms of kind of inventory issues. You mentioned Texas. Texas is a market that's been a little choppier in the last few months. It's a place where there's probably more competition. Every major builder is in every market in Texas. So there are a few markets there. Austin is the one I'd highlight that had unprecedented price appreciation that there were really high-paying jobs that went there post COVID with a lot of relocations and there were short inventories. So we saw maybe less than kind of moderated pace around price appreciation.

So I think there's a few markets there that are probably still going through some price normalization, those are markets that I think will continue to fare well. There's good jobs there. Taxes are relatively affordable and there are places where people want to be. So we're still confident in our Texas markets as well.

[Anthony Pettinari, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. I'll turn it over.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Michael Rehaut at JPMorgan. And Michael, your line is open. You may have yourself muted.

[Michael Rehaut, analyst]

I wanted to circle back a little bit to the cadence of incentives during the quarter. I think you broadly kind of described incentives as having remained elevated throughout the quarter you expect it to remain elevated into the fourth quarter. I was curious on where incentives began 3Q and where it ended. And if there was any decline in incentives in September, as you said, you had a particularly strong demand.

[Robert Shaughnessy, executive]

Yes, Mike, I think you can see from the guide that we've given, and we've -- not suggested, we've told you we see elevated incentives continuing. We didn't really see those mitigate during the quarter. And it's worth highlighting the rate that we're offering is below market already. And so the movement in the 30-year doesn't really influence us as much as what do we need to do both competitively and from the affordability construct for the consumer.

So if you see a 25 basis point move in the 30-year, we're already 100-plus inside that with our incentive programs and so what we're telling you is that the consumer needs some help with the affordability and the incentives in the way we're getting there.

[Michael Rehaut, analyst]

Right. I guess, what I'm getting at is, typically, when you do see an increase in demand, maybe it's not the initial reaction, but over, let's say, several months, I believe it is kind of normal to see incentives start to tick down? Is that overall higher level of demand kind of works through?

So I'm curious, that's really what I'm more curious about maybe if it's not the first month of a reaction given that you said it was really more concentrated in September in terms of the improvement in demand if that were to have been more sustained over the following months, if you would normally see that. I think what I would characterize as a typical decline in incentives, at least for the move-up buyers perhaps which aren't helped as much by that rate buy down. That's what I'm more curious about, I guess.

[Robert Shaughnessy, executive]

Yes. We'll have to see. I think the answer to that, we -- rates ticked back up, right? So at the end of the day, we'll see if the Fed continues down a path to reduce interest rates. And Ryan said in his prepared comments, we think that the selling season is going to be a better indicator of overall demand.

And to your point, if the rate environment improves, and demand is strong. Yes, I think we'd have an opportunity to reduce our action.

[Michael Rehaut, analyst]

Right. Secondly, just on -- from a regional perspective, you've kind of highlighted the inventory dynamics in Florida and Texas. I'm curious also for those markets relative to the rest of your markets, if you've seen an increase in incentives in those markets, just given all the hype around resale inventory levels, if you've seen a significant or unusual increase in incentives in those markets, let's say, today versus 6 months ago?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes. Texas, Mike, is the market that I would tell you has probably been more competitive just because of the number of competitors that are there. I don't -- it's nothing that I would suggest is -- it wouldn't anything we've done is out of line or is on the level of making us uncomfortable, but probably higher incentives in the Texas markets than what we saw earlier in the year.

Other thing Bob just indicated, we'll see what the fourth quarter and provides is possibly, we see some reduction in interest rates, and that may give us the opportunity to back off of incentives a little bit.

[Operator]

We'll go next to Mike Dahl at RBC Capital Markets.

[Michael Dahl, analyst]

You're going to stick with the margin dynamics? So Bob, I think last quarter, when you guided to kind of the sequential step down in margins in 3Q and 4Q relative to 2Q, you already anticipated the mix dynamic. So is the mix even different and more of a headwind in 4Q than you originally anticipated? Or is the right way to think about the sequential and 4Q gross margin really you already -- you've highlighted the mix, that's what it is, but the delta versus your prior guide is really the incentive load?

[Robert Shaughnessy, executive]

Yes. On balance, it's not changing dramatically. We've got a little bit more Western market business. Again, the strength there on a relative basis, it really relates to the incentives or as we've highlighted a couple of times now, it's a challenging affordability equation, and we're looking to meet it so to return our assets.

[Michael Dahl, analyst]

Yes. That makes sense. And then the follow-up is really drilling down on incentives. If you can provide a little more color, you talked about the 70% on total incentive load and that's up 70 bps sequentially. But in the commentary, it seems like suggested it's really that the incremental change may have been predominantly on entry level.

Can you help us quantify what the incentives on entry-level are or were in 3Q and in your 4Q guide and maybe how that compares quarter-on-quarter?

[Robert Shaughnessy, executive]

Yes, that's probably a slice of the bill only a little too thin. Again, affordability is a challenge for all of our consumers. The entry level feels it first and the most. And so it's going to be a little bit richer for them, but I wouldn't want to parse it quite that thinly.

[Operator]

We'll go next to Carl Reichardt at BTIG.

[Carl Reichardt, analyst]

I want to go back to Florida again. sort of bigger picture and longer term. So obviously, there's been some talk about intermediate-term migration patterns changing there, whether that's the frequency of weather or insurance conditions, type prices. So if you're thinking about investing capital, say, in '27 or beyond in new deals there, do these dynamics impact your thinking, especially given those markets are competitive, too, as you're talking about Texas do you require a higher rate of return to invest there?

How do you think about sort of beyond the very -- the intermediate term, the short term in terms of where you place capital regionally, if you think these dynamics in Florida might be changing? Or are you sticking with it?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes, Carl, thanks for the question. Florida has been very good to our business. We do have a lot of capital invested there today. So for what it's worth. We'd like to continue to see Florida perform well for the investments that we've already made and the capital that's already been committed. As it relates to future stuff I think we'll take inputs as they come from the market, we're not going to blindly continue to go after things if we're seeing a change in market conditions.

I think that's one of the disciplines that we have in our underwriting criteria. I still remain really bullish on Florida. And in fact, if you look at the parts of Florida where we're investing, they're a little more inland, they're on higher ground. They're not places that are being impacted by the things that you see on TV.

Some of the things that you see on TV are the things that are right on the beach, they are the coastal areas, there are homes that were built in the '70s and '80s, not at the current code. It's devastating. It's terrible. I don't think anybody would want it to happen. But my sense is our business is not probably directly impacted by some of the things that you're seeing on TV.

I'd highlight that some of the moves that you're seeing are kind of within Florida. So they're intra Florida moves as opposed to out of Florida moves. Florida remains a place that's got great quality of life. Maybe it's not as favorable of the deal as it used to be, but still relatively affordable. There's good jobs there. There's no state income taxes. So there are some offsets to some of the things like rising insurance rates and the like.

[Carl Reichardt, analyst]

I appreciate that. And then my second question is off balance sheet, 56% off balance sheet now or option lots and the 70% of the goal. Is it still your intention to bridge that gap via effective land banking and as opposed to a safe farmer options. And what are you seeing right now in the land banking market in terms of pricing terms? Have the negotiations, the discussions you've had with the large bankers kind of gone as you expected? Or are you seeing challenges there that you didn't expect?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes, Carl, we're making nice progress on our land options up to 56% in the quarter. We've highlighted it will be a journey. We think it will probably take somewhere around 3 to 3.5 years in total as we cycle through our land portfolio to accrete up to the 70% level.

But we're clicking off the milestones as intended. So I'm really pleased with how our land teams are performing on that front. We'd expect 50% of our land to be with farmer options or land seller options. The other 20% that we're looking for to the option will come from bankers. Our land banking team has done a really nice job building out a portfolio of bankers that we're working with.

They're consistent. They're behaving in a very predictable way. And it's working out incredibly well for us. Interest rates, their money is tied to kind of what you see in the interest rate environment more broadly in the market. So we got a little bit of improvement on some stuff that we did in the third quarter.

We'll have to see how things go in the fourth quarter depending on what happens with rates, but we're pleased with how the land banking program is working.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Trevor Allinson at Wolfe Research.

[Trevor Allinson, analyst]

First, a question on conversion rates. You guys talked about 5% to 10% growth annually. I think that included 2025. Just given where your backlog is trending, I think that would imply a pretty notable improvement in backlog conversion rate next year to grow closings 5% or more. So any commentary on -- is that where you're expecting an improvement in conversion rates?

And then if so, maybe talk about the drivers of that, whether that be the improved cycle times that you guys referenced earlier or any additional spec any other drivers to call out?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes. Trevor, backlog conversion rate is something that's a number that can be impacted by 2 things: one, cycle time getting better or worse. We indicated in the prepared remarks, our cycle times will continue to come down. So we'll certainly get some benefit from that.

And then the other piece is spec inventory by the definition, those homes that are in production that are spec are not in backlog. So a lot of those will sell and convert in the same quarter and they won't show up in that metric. So I don't want to tell you how to run your models, but given the percentage of spec inventory that we're starting and selling, given the current interest rate environment, I think probably a better metric is to look at homes in production, total homes in production is a good indicator of whether or not we have the available homes to deliver into next year's closing volume.

[Trevor Allinson, analyst]

Okay. Understood. And then I guess the second question then would be kind of following up on that, finished inventory, 1.4 finished specs per community. That's a little bit above your longer-term target number of one. Can you talk about how you feel about your current completed spec level and how you're thinking about spec production then moving forward?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes. In the current environment where we're selling almost 40% of our business is coming through first time, which tends to be predominantly stocked or mostly stock. And in the current interest rate environment, we actually want higher spec inventory as a percentage of WIP than what we had historically pre-COVID operated that.

So the things that you've heard us most recently talked about as being between 35% and 45% of total WIP. And at the end of this most recent quarter, we're at 42% of our total inventory in spec. So we feel like we're right in line there on the finish side, when we were operating in more of a build-to-order model, I think one per community was a pretty good number.

And we're not abandoning that. We're slightly over that at 1.4, but we don't feel that we have any inventory exposure that's got us uncomfortable at this point. We're selling over 50% of the homes that we're selling right now are selling at some form of as a spec. So they're at some form of kind of production moving through the pipeline. So we feel pretty good there as well.

[Trevor Allinson, analyst]

Okay. Makes sense. Good luck moving forward.

[Operator]

Next, we'll go to Sam Reid at Wells Fargo.

[Richard Reid, analyst]

Last quarter, I want to say you guys mentioned that land costs were likely to trend up about high single digits in 2024. Just looking to confirm kind of how that trended in the third quarter, what's embedded in the fourth quarter guidance and then I know you're not necessarily talking 2025 now, but you do have some visibility here. So just curious as to whether that's a reasonable assumption to next year?

[Robert Shaughnessy, executive]

Yes. We did see high single-digit lot cost increase in Q3. We do see that in Q4. We have not provided a guide for '25, but we've said this before, our lot costs haven't decreased in more than a decade. Land is more expensive. And as we cycle through older land, the stuff coming on is more expensive we'll give some color as to what that means for '25 when we give our '25 guidance.

[Richard Reid, analyst]

No that's fair. And then just sticking to kind of housekeeping questions, and apologies if this was already covered, but just wanted to ask about options and lot premiums as a percent of ASP, want to say, last quarter, it was around $104,000. Just curious what that was in Q3 and then perhaps what's embedded in guidance for the fourth quarter?

[Robert Shaughnessy, executive]

Yes. We were 100 in Q3. So relatively consistent and that is embedded in our guide for Q4 as well. Worth it to highlight that a lot of that option revenue and lot premium comes from our move-up and active adult buyers. So you're at, call it, 60% of our business is driving most of that.

And to further the comment that Ryan made earlier, that's not where we're doing most of the speculative building.

[Richard Reid, analyst]

No, it makes sense.

[Operator]

And we'll go next to Matthew Bouley at Barclays.

[Matthew Bouley, analyst]

Back on that 5% to 10% growth that you kind of reiterated as the long-term target. I'm wondering if in fact, that is still the plan for 2025 specifically? And kind of to what extent you're willing to flex around that growth target, maybe depending on where rates are or kind of general consumer demand is?

And any thoughts around if there's a margin or incentive trade-off in your mind at which you might kind of dial back that volume growth?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes, Matt, we haven't given a '25 guide. We'll do that at the end of next quarter. The long-term guide that we gave was meant to be that it was kind of a multiyear guide of how we're positioning the business and investing in land. So '25 specifically, will tell you more next quarter.

[Matthew Bouley, analyst]

Okay. Fair enough. And then maybe one on the balance sheet. Just I think the net debt to cap of 1.4%. I'm curious if the kind of increase in land banking that you're targeting is actually playing into how you're managing the balance sheet here, if there is kind of a need to either hold on to more cash or kind of keep leverage low, if that is playing into it at all? Or just more generally, what would be your thoughts around kind of increasing that leverage back to prior levels?

[Ryan Marshall, executive]

Yes, Matt, we've talked about this a little bit, I think, on prior calls. And our view is we've got a view on how we're investing in the business, how we're growing the business. And that's driving what our capital needs are. We then look to what operating cash flow is, how much of the business investment strategy we can finance with our own cash and with the operating cash flow.

And then we go to kind of debt or other capital market mechanisms. I think the way to look at leverage is it's an outcome as opposed to it being a driver Bob, anything else to that there?

[Robert Shaughnessy, executive]

No, other than to say in terms of land banking, specifically what it is really going to do is free up cash. As we increase the relative percentage of optionality, our balance sheet on a relative basis gets smaller. So it will give us more choices to Ryan's point about what to do with that cash.

[Operator]

And that concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Jim for closing remarks.

[James Zeumer, executive]

Appreciate everybody's time today. We're certainly available as the day goes on for any additional questions. Otherwise, we'll look forward to speaking with you on our fourth quarter call. Thank you.

[Operator]

And that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.