Today, we are developing 70% to 80% of our own land depending on the market. What we need to do, we really try to make as much as we can, the competitive — the land area, a competitive advantage for us. We have spent a lot of time the last couple of years on our land acquisition teams, our land development teams, helping sellers, get land through zoning, through approvals before we take title to it. But we feel very good overall about our land position. And as we’ve said before, when you look at our 17 markets, we just opened our first community in Nashville in the last month. We’re starting to get some things going in our Fort Myers/Naples area. So, we think we have room to do 12,000, 13,000 units in our existing 17 markets. And we think our land position is really in good shape for the next couple of years.
Carl Reichardt: Guys, thanks so much for all the detail. Just the last one is on the mix going forward between Smart Series and other product. If you look at your home bots plus your control bots in the future, if that’s going to alter any meaningful way? Thanks.
Robert Schottenstein: I think it’s going to go up a little bit more. We’ve talked about this, it seems, a number of times over the last two, three, four, five calls like this. I remember when it was 25%, we said we thought it could get to 30% or 35%. Then when it got to 35%, we thought it could get to 40% to 45%. Then when it got to 40% to 45%, we thought it could get to 50% to 55%. It’s at 50% to 55% now. We continue to really push with more affordable product. I mentioned in my remarks earlier that several years ago, it’s probably been three or four years ago, frankly, when we really set out and focused on designing even more affordable product with narrower single family, expanding our attached townhome product offering from.
It was pretty good then. It’s a lot more robust now. So I think that with all that, and just because of what’s going on, I could see it getting up there to 60% or 65% at some point. When you look at our new communities and where things are headed, and we’re getting better absorption. So even if the community mix stayed the same, the fact that the absorptions with the more affordable product are holding up better. Having said all that, our move-up product is outstanding. It sells well. It bears well. It margins well. I like the diversity. We don’t have to put all our eggs in one basket, and we’re not going to. So I like the mix. I like the small component of empty nester that we offer as well. I think we’ve sort of got the pieces in the right place, but it could go up a little bit, Carl, just because of what’s happening in the economy.
And 55% of our buyers are first time buyers now. And I think that’s likely to — if that continues to stay about that level or even go up a little, fueled by millennial and Gen Zers, which it likely will be, that could also push that Smart Series mix number up.
Phillip Creek: Interesting, Carl, is that, last year we opened a little over 100 new stores. This year we’re on target to open about 85. We’ve opened like 56 through the first nine months. So if we end the year with 225 or so, 185 of them will have opened the last 24 months. So again, that’s been a great opportunity for us, not only location, product and price point. We’re really trying to pay attention to affordability for sure.
Carl Reichardt: That’s great detail. Thank you so much, Phil. Thanks, Bob.
Robert Schottenstein: Thank you.
Phillip Creek: Thanks, Carl.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Barron at Housing Research Center. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Alex Barron: Yes. Thanks, guys, and great job so far this year.
Robert Schottenstein: Thanks, Alex.
Alex Barron: Obviously, your leverage has come down significantly. You’ve build a nice cash balance. I mean, if things continue as they are, do you guys see the potential to increase the stock buyback activity, given that, I mean, I don’t know what else you guys plan to do with the cash. But can you comment on that?
Phillip Creek: Sure, Alex. And that’s something obviously we watch very close. I mean, job one is always, how the business is doing. What do we think the outlook is for the business? And again, we feel really good about that. We will be spending, continuing to spend money on land. Year-to-date, we’ve spent about $600 million. We’re spending a little more on land development. Right now, they are land purchases. So, land spend will continue to take part of it. We did spend more on stock buyback in the third quarter than we did in the second. And we spent $25 million in the third quarter. And that’s something we’ll just continue to look at, because we do have a whole lot of liquidity, a little more cash than we thought. It is benefiting from improved cycle time in that we have been closing a few more houses than we thought we would.
