D.R. Horton, Inc. (NYSE:DHI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Bill Wheat: Yeah, Eric, it’s — what we have visibility to is basically what’s in our backlog and what’s been in our recent sales, and then, we certainly have visibility to what our recent cost levels have been. So, we’ve been seeing the costs on our more recent starts be lower. So, we’ve got some visibility to what that could produce. So, right now, as we look at our recent backlog in sales, we see a sequential modest improvement in margin up to kind of the high-23%-s to 24% range in Q4. You used the word stabilization. Last quarter, we used that word quite a bit. And so, we — and we’re still seeing that. And so, I think we are kind of settling into a more stable period here in terms of our costs, and demand has been pretty steady as well. So, I think we certainly don’t see a trajectory in margin forever upward, but the modest improvement into the coming quarter looks like a pretty sustainable level here in the near-to-medium term.

Mike Murray: A lot of tailwind from limited inventory supply at affordable price points are helpful to margins. And then, interest rates are the biggest risk to margins. Significant increases in interest rates will compress our margins.

Eric Bosshard: Within this, you mentioned a moment ago, buying rates down a point below market has been a silver bullet or something that’s been a catalyst for consumers to go ahead and sign a contract. I’m curious if you’re seeing that’s just the way it’s going to be, or if you’re seeing consumers becoming more comfortable with the reality in the days of a 3% mortgage are long gone. I guess, what I’m trying to figure out is, can you get away with buying down rates less now? Are you seeing consumers a bit less sensitive? Or is this the medium-term reality that we should expect?

Paul Romanowski: Yeah. The interest rate buydown is an incentive like many that we use, and we have a lot of different levers that we may pull market-by-market or community-by-community based on the needs of the buyers walking in the door. That has certainly been a hot button today because of the meteoric rise in rates and people’s adjustment to that. As that adjusts, it will just ebb and flow with different incentives, whether that’s closing costs or price or included features. It’s been a good tool for us today. We will adjust to the market as it comes at us.

Jessica Hansen: It was still on a majority of the homes we closed in the third quarter, but it was at a lower percentage than it was in Q2 in terms of the number of buyers utilizing that incentive.

Eric Bosshard: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Ken Zener from Seaport Research Partners. Ken, your line is live.

Ken Zener: Good morning, everybody.

David Auld: Good morning, Ken.

Ken Zener: I want to take — well, two questions here. One, I just want to kind of focus on capital and cash flow, and the other is going to be about just where we are on kind of the level of business by community versus the past. So, your ability to match EPS to cash flow has been improving, I think, $3 billion of cash flow, and I think about $4 billion in net income, so about 75%. Obviously, multi-family plays into that. But could you specifically talk to the 53% of option lots that you expect to be finished? What limits this from going higher, perhaps, and what kind of factors determine whether you’re taking down finished or raw land in those options structures? And just refresh us on what that raw first developed lot cost is so we can understand the inflation inherent in those raw lots.

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