But I think over time we certainly expect additional stabilization, which will continue to bring incentives down.
Elizabeth Langan : Thank you very much.
Sheryl Palmer: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Mike Dahl from RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Unidentified Analyst: Hi. It’s actually Chris Claude [ph] on for Mike. Just touching on the community count growth comments for 2025. I think you guys said, you’re expecting meaningful growth there. Could you just help us better quantify what that — what meaningful kind of means there? And then in terms of the trajectory just given the flat community count outlook for this year? Should we expect that meaningfully stepping up as soon as 1Q 2025? Or is that more of a back-half-weighted comment there?
Sheryl Palmer: We really aren’t at this point going to give guidance — specific guidance obviously for 2025. But what I would tell you is that we do expect to see community count. We talked about 10% closing growth each year thereafter. I would think you’re going to see something in a very similar light on the community count without us getting too specific. And as we look at the land that’s kind of in our pipeline today, I think you’ll see that starting in early 2025 and building through the year.
Unidentified Analyst: Understood. Appreciate that. And then just on the share buyback expectation that you guys said $300 million for this year. Is that included in the diluted share count guide for both next quarter and the year-end? Just having trouble reconciling the — to getting to 108 million and 109 million shares outstanding is that in the guide? And then I guess if it is or if it isn’t just a timing and expectation around deployment there?
Curt VanHyfte: Yes. Hi Chris that share repurchase guide is not included in the share counts that were in our release because they haven’t necessarily happened yet. So, those are not contemplated in that.
Unidentified Analyst: Appreciate your help.
Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Jay McCanless from Wedbush. Please go ahead Jay, your line is now open.
Jay McCanless: Hey, good morning everyone. So, on the 40% of communities where you’re not raising prices is it holding prices stable or having to cut pretty aggressively. Maybe talk about what you’re doing with that 40% of the count?
Sheryl Palmer: I don’t think there’d be one trend I’d point to Jay. I think it’s actually kind of reverted to a more normal environment where you might have closeouts where you do have some added discounts, you might have new openings where you’re coming in strong and then wanting to build kind of equity for the customers over time. I’d say probably as a role, I’d say probably held serve without taking a deep dive into every one of those 40%, I would say that would be the average, but I would say you probably have some added incentives. And certainly you might have a few communities where you’re going to close out where you discounted the house. But I would say the average would probably be hold serve.
Jay McCanless: And then maybe could you talk about what’s happening with co-broker and outside broker commissions. What are you seeing there? And you’re expecting that to be a headwind for 2024’s numbers?
Sheryl Palmer: Yes, I’d say we saw that as a headwind actually in the back half of 2023 as I’m sure you know in 2022 we reduced commissions we reduced the base rate. We didn’t put it on where we were seeing hobos we excluded that from co-bro commission. So, when the market kind of normalized I think the market went back to that kind of average 3%. If I were to share some good news though, as I look at our reservations moving into 2024, for the first six weeks of this year, we’ve seen some really nice movement on co-broke trending down from the peak. I would say generally over the last couple of years co-broke in our reservation and our reservations have been pretty consistent with the overall business and we’ve known the opportunity is really to build trust with that consumer before they ever get a broker or their house on the market.
And we’ve finally started to see that. We’ll hope it’s sustainable. But all-in-all, when I look at the book of business outside of the reservations, my guess is we remain relatively consistent to the back half of 2023.
Jay McCanless: Okay. Great. Thank you for that. And then the last question I had, because I think I’m getting these numbers confuse in my head, but how many homes or closings what percentage of closings had some type of discount during fourth quarter? And maybe talk about what the level of that discounting was? And what have you seen thus far into the spring?
Sheryl Palmer: Yeah. So I would say every house has some discount. It’s either closing cost assistance. It’s — it might be finance tools, it might be some promotion in the design center. And I’d say that’s just normal course of business. Specifically if you’re thinking about our forward commitments and the specific tools that we’ve — our comers are enjoying in rate buy-downs for 2023, about 20% of our closings utilized some forward commitment. The balance like I said would have used some assistance and closing costs. Maybe it was a specific finance incentive. But these tranches of forward commitments that was 20% for the year and a little bit higher in the fourth quarter when we saw the spike in rates. But as we talked about in our prepared remarks that generally leans heavily toward our first-time buyers where they really need more of that assistance to qualify from — to qualify and get the monthly mortgage that they can enjoy.
Jay McCanless: Got it. Okay, great. Thank you. That’s all I have.
Sheryl Palmer: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Mike Rehaut from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Mike, your line is now open.
