PulteGroup, Inc. (NYSE:PHM) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Ryan Marshall: Yes, Carl, it’s a great question. And as I think you’re aware, we are really proud of our Delaware business and what it adds to kind of the overall mix of our portfolio. You highlighted that buyer tends to be probably most reactive, positive and negative, to volatility within the broader market. And there’s certainly been a fair amount of kind of volatility lately. That tends to cause that buyer to maybe pause as opposed to stop. On the positive side, you highlighted it’s a thin resale inventory market. And so I certainly think that buyer has been able to sell their home. They’ve been able to sell their home, but I think at pretty good price. And on the buy side, they’re not necessarily looking for a mortgage or the mortgage they’re looking for is pretty small.

So there are some puts and takes. A couple of other things that I’d highlight, relative to the other two buyer groups that we serve, they were — the active adult was in the middle. They weren’t quite as strong as the first-time buyer. Again, I think because they don’t have to move, they’ve got options, they can be a little more patient. They were certainly more strong — or did better than the move-up buyer, I think, mostly driven by the fact that they’re not as rate sensitive. So on balance, Carl, we feel pretty good about the active adult space, kind of all things considered. And I think it will continue to be a strong benefit to the overall enterprise.

Operator: Our next question comes from Anthony Pettinari with Citi.

Q – Anthony Pettinari: Good morning. Just following up on affordability, when we look at net order ASP, I guess, down 5% quarter-over-quarter, is it possible to break that out between incentives based price reductions and kind of any mix shift that you saw?

Ryan Marshall: Anthony, we haven’t provided that, and so we’re not going to reluctantly.

Q – Anthony Pettinari: Yes. I mean, directionally, is there a way to think about mix shift as being significant or not significant? I don’t know if there’s any kind of parameters you can put there?

Ryan Marshall: Yes. Anthony, I think what I would tell you is that it’s fluid. And sometimes things that start as kind of discounts off of a price or adjustments to lot premiums, sometimes those are rolled into kind of base price changes or base price reductions. And so the discount gets embedded over time into kind of what the new market price is. So, to Bob’s point, we are not going to probably break it out at this point. But you can see, based on the incentive load that I talked about as well as the kind of reduction of base price, we are finding what we think is the market-clearing price to continue to sell homes.

Q – Anthony Pettinari: Okay, okay. Understood. And then just I think your selling homes on land that was partially or maybe even largely put under control prior to the pandemic. Just how long kind of roughly before you sort of exhaust that cost basis? And then can you just touch on impairment risk? I mean what kind of — what level of margin or price pressure would you need to see before a community would come under review for impairment?

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