Good morning, and welcome to the Builders FirstSource first quarter 2019 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded and will be archived at www.bldr.com. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Bennett Sung V., Vice President, Investor Relations.
Thank you, Rochelle. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us for the Builders FirstSource first quarter 2019 earnings conference call. With me today are Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer, and Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer. A copy of the slide deck referenced on this call is available on the Investor Relations section of the Builders FirstSource website at www.bldr.com. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. Any reproduction of this call, in whole or in part, is not permitted without prior written authorization of Builders FirstSource. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, May 3rd, 2019. Builders FirstSource issued a press release after the market closed yesterday. If you do not have a copy, you can find it on our website at bldr.com.
Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during the course of this conference call, we may make statements concerning the company's future prospects, financial results, business strategies, and industry trends. Such statements are considered forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Please refer to our most recent Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other reports filed with the SEC for more information on those risks. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. The company will discuss adjusted results on this call.
We have provided reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to their GAAP equivalents in our earnings press release and detailed explanations of non-GAAP financial measures in our Form 8-K filed yesterday, both of which are available on our website. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Chad Crow.
Thank you, Bennett. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call today. I will start with an update on our first quarter achievements. Peter will discuss our first quarter results in more detail. I will then finish with an update on our strategic priorities and outlook. I'll start on slide three. I am extremely pleased with our strong start to 2019 as we managed to outperform the market, demonstrating the resilient strength of our company, strategy, and team. We continued to capitalize on our competitive advantages and realize the increasing benefits of our investments and initiatives. While commodity price deflation decreased our net sales by more than 9%, we grew our sales volume by nearly 7%, substantially outperforming recent housing starts. Adjusted EBITDA grew by almost 22% compared to the first quarter last year.
Excluding deflation, our value-added product sales grew by an impressive 10% as we continued to benefit from our investments in capacity, as well as investments in our sales force. Our team continued to execute our strategy in a challenging quarter, and our results clearly reflect it. Our operational excellence initiatives continued to show tangible progress. As we have discussed on prior calls, our primary initiatives are focused in four areas: enhanced business analytics, pricing management tools, our MyBFSBuilder customer portal, and delivery optimization technology. To date, we have rolled out our delivery optimization system to nearly 170 locations, measurably improving the speed, uptime, and reliability of our distribution network. We expect these initiatives to contribute between $14 million and $16 million to our EBITDA in 2019.
We are increasingly realizing the growth and margin expansion benefits of our investments in value-added products capacity while becoming an even more important partner to our customers by helping them solve challenges like increasing costs, labor scarcity, and long cycle times. Our plans to continue expanding our manufacturing and value-added capacity remain on track. During the balance of 2019, we intend to invest in three new truss plants, approximately eight new truss lines in existing plants, door facility expansions, and new machinery and systems to a dozen more. We are extremely proud of our industry-leading production capacity, sales force, and distribution network and will continue to invest to enhance our position. I will talk more about our value-added products and their potential a little later in the call. I will now turn the call over to Peter, who will review our first quarter financial results in more detail.
Thank you, Chad. Good morning, everyone. As a reminder, we have included adjusted figures to normalize for one-time costs related to our integration work and other non-recurring items. Please also note that we had one less sales day in the first quarter of 2019 than the prior year, so I will speak to our results on a sales per day basis. We had $1.6 billion in net sales in the first quarter, down 2.5%, primarily due to the commodity inflation, which decreased sales by 9.3%. The commodity headwind offset strong sales volume growth of 6.8%. As Chad mentioned, this included 10% sales volume growth in our value-added product categories, reflecting the strong execution of our strategic plan.
Gross margins of $442 million increased by $31 million or 7.5% over the prior year. Sequential gross margin percentages remained higher than expected at a record 27.1%, 290 basis points higher than the first quarter of 2018. Commodity prices began the quarter by continuing last year's downward trend before stabilizing at a level a bit below our expectations. As a result, our first quarter gross margin percentage benefited from those declining costs relative to our customer pricing agreements. Together with our team's continued pricing discipline, this price cost benefit, combined with a favorable shift in mix towards higher margin value-added products, and resulted in an exceptionally strong gross margin for the quarter.
As we have discussed in prior calls, market price volatility inflation causes short-term gross margin percentage compression when prices rapidly rise, and similarly, cause gross margin percentage expansion when prices rapidly decline relative to the short-term pricing commitments we provide customers. This expansionary benefit diminished over the course of the quarter as commodity prices have stabilized and gross margin percentages are returning to more normalized levels. Our SG&A as a percentage of sales increased by 160 basis points on a year-over-year basis. This increase was primarily due to higher variable compensation as, similar to the fourth quarter, our strong gross margin led to higher commissions expenditures in the quarter. Increased insurance expenses also contributed to the higher SG&A. Adjusted interest expense for the quarter was $24.9 million compared to $26.7 million in the prior year, a decline of $1.8 million.
The reduction was mainly the result of our ongoing balance sheet management and debt. This included the opportunistic repurchase of some of our 2024 notes during the quarter. Adjusted net income for the quarter was $39.8 million or $0.34 per diluted share compared to $27.6 million or $0.24 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2018. The year-over-year increase of $12.2 million or 44% was primarily driven by the improved operating results combined with the lower interest expense. First quarter EBITDA grew by $18.3 million or 22.2% to $100.9 million. The improvement was largely driven by our strong growth in sales volumes, particularly in our value-added product categories and the related increased gross margin percentage. Turning to slide five, the strength of our business, including our national scale, showed itself in the quarter.
Our team successfully managed a soft quarter for housing starts, numerous regional weather disruptions, and low commodity prices. Despite these challenges, four of our core product segments categories reported impressive sales growth in the quarter. Excluding deflation, even our lumber and lumber sheet goods product category grew sales volume reflecting our geographic diversity. As we build further upon this success, we are committed to continuing the expansion of our current network of 58 manufacturing facilities strategically located across the country. Approximately 25% of our 2019 capital expenditures will be invested in our value-add growth initiatives and expansion of our production capacity as Chad outlined. Turning to page six, our fourth quarter sales volume per day grew an estimated 7.5% in the single-family new construction end market, in spite of a decline in overall single-family starts. Regional strength, particularly in the Southeast, contributed to the outperformance.
Our sales volume in R&R and other end markets grew by 5.2%, primarily due to a strengthening in Alaska. Multi-family sales volume improved by 4.1%, largely due to timing of projects started in 2018. Turning to page seven, our business uses cash in the first half of the year and generates cash in the second half due to seasonal work and capital needs. The company used cash in operations and investing of only $14.8 million in the quarter. Given this strong start, we are increasing our full-year cash flow guidance to $190 million-$220 million in free cash flow after funding our capital expenditure plans of approximately 1.5% of net sales. Total liquidity as of March 31st, 2019, was an ample $585.9 million, comprised of borrowing availability under our revolving credit facility and cash on hand.
Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio on a trailing 12-month basis as of March 31st, 2019, was three times, a 1.6 times reduction from prior year, and comfortably within our target range of two and a half to three and a half times lever. We look forward to the rest of 2019, we have a high level of confidence in our team's ability to execute on market opportunities, mitigate challenges, and deliver the initiatives within our control. Let me provide some details on what we see for the second quarter of 2019. Net sales are expected to be down in the second quarter, driven by commodity price deflation in the range of 11%-13%.
As a result, despite an expected increase in sales volume, our second quarter sales are expected to be down by 8%-10% as compared to the second quarter of 2018. We expect the gross margin percentage to improve 190-210 basis points compared to the second quarter of 2018. Although declining sequentially from the exceptional margin experienced during the last two quarters, as the previously mentioned benefit from rapidly declining commodity costs tails off. As a result, second quarter EBITDA is expected to be between $120 million-$130 million. For the full year 2019, we expect single-family starts in our markets to grow in the range of 3%-6%, R&R market growth in the low single digits, and flat to low single-digit growth in the multifamily market. At this point, we anticipate full-year commodity deflation similar to the 9%-10% we saw in the first quarter.
We also remain confident in our operational excellence initiatives, which we expect to contribute $14 million-$16 million to the 2019 EBITDA. We will continue to invest in our business through capital expenditures at approximately 1.5% of sales. Regarding cash taxes, we expect to fully utilize our federal NOL tax asset during 2019 and become a federal cash taxpayer again in the second half of the year. We expect an effective tax rate of approximately 25% for the full year. Cash interest and interest expense are both expected to be in the range of $95 million-$100 million. We continue our systems integration work to support our operational initiatives, we expect one-time related costs of $15 million-$20 million for the year.
As already mentioned, we expect to generate $190 million to $220 million in free cash flow for the full year 2019, an increase of $10 million from our prior guidance. Chad will provide an update regarding our strategic priorities and outlooks.
Thank you, Peter. Moving to page eight. Although housing has slowed over the last few quarters, the fundamental underpinnings of home buyer demand remain intact. We continue to expect single-family housing starts to progress over the coming years towards the 1.1 million historical average. We continue to develop our sales force and invest further in our manufacturing and value-added facility expansion initiatives. These growth platforms provide us significant ongoing opportunities to increase our market share and increase the penetration of our higher-margin products as the market also accelerates its adoption of these labor-saving, high-efficiency products. In addition to capturing market growth, the growth of our value-added product sales and operational excellence initiatives underway are expected to generate approximately $100 million of incremental profitability in the coming years.
Our plan remains on track to generate EBITDA 50% higher than last year, or roughly $750 million, as we reach historic norms in housing. We expect to deliver EPS between $3 and $3.50, and achieve greater than 85% conversion of our adjusted net income to free cash flow. The substantial cash we generate will be used to fund both our high-return growth investments and to further improve our financial flexibility. Turning to slide nine, we detail expectations for our growth initiatives. Our core business strength, including our national footprint, unmatched scale and manufacturing capability, and exceptional sales force, provides us with a platform well-positioned to capitalize on the continuing operations we see for core growth in the residential housing market. We expect to generate an incremental $130 million to $160 million in EBITDA compared to the full year 2018 as housing starts return to historical averages.
In addition to this core growth, our plans continue to call for investing in approximately 20 new manufacturing facilities, including three underway this year, by expanding our nationwide footprint to serve a number of markets where we see accelerating opportunities to serve our customers. Additionally, our plan includes a set of operational excellence efficiency initiatives already underway, including investments in distribution and logistics software, pricing and margin management tools, back-office process efficiencies, and information system enhancements. These initiatives are expected to generate an additional $60 million to $70 million in incremental annual EBITDA. When fully rolled out across our 400 locations, these initiatives and investments are designed to deliver cost benefit and margin expansion, which total $90 million to $110 million. They will further differentiate our service levels, strengthen our connectivity with our customers, and provide economic and strategic value that is unrivaled by our smaller competitors.
Moving to slide 10, I would like to take a moment to provide a bit more detail around what we have been doing to build our leadership in the manufactured products category. As we have outlined previously, our industry-leading manufacturing capacity delivers value-added products to fulfill customers' needs, helping them address the ongoing challenges of skilled labor scarcity, long cycle times, and control over both quality and cost. With all the talk about future building technologies, few focus on the largest category of off-site construction which is here today: value-added manufactured components. This is a highly profitable and growing opportunity that we have been focused on for more than a decade. During that time, we have extended our leadership position and built a network of 58 manufacturing facilities.
Today, we carry a complete line of off-site manufactured components from roof trusses, floor trusses, and wall panels to our pre-cut Better Framing System solution. Our facilities utilize the latest technology, including computer-controlled saws, 3D software design, and automated material placement and finishing. These high-speed lines improve efficiency by 35%-40% compared to the typical manual lines employed by most of our smaller competitors. The trends are clear. Customers are increasingly pivoting toward the entry-level and lower-priced products to satisfy the growing need for entry-level homes. Home builders are striving to deliver high value to home buyers while reducing their costs. Builders FirstSource helps home builders achieve that goal. In addition to the accelerating rate of adoption, another encouraging sign is the growing interest in a broader set of components beyond roof trusses.
We recently held customer workshops in one of our largest MSAs to help builders and their framers understand the benefits of off-site construction solutions. The results were very positive, as all the attendees adopted at least 1 new type of manufactured component, many for the first time. The signs are all very positive, our scale, resources, and deep customer relationships put us in a position to capitalize on this customer opportunity and continue to gain high margin share in this rapidly growing market. Moving to slide 11. Although we hear divergent opinions about the health of the U.S. housing industry and its outlook, we continue to see a housing supply deficit.
As the second quarter has begun, we remain confident in the fundamentals of the macroeconomic environment and in the demographic drivers of demand, our home builders are making the necessary adjustments to their products to respond to the evolving needs of home buyers. We are confident in our team's ability to execute our strategy, deliver above-market growth, and create value for our customers and shareholders. The ongoing rollout of our operational excellence initiatives and our strategic investments in manufacturing capacity are expected to continue to drive improvements in profitability and cash flow generation. I look forward to building on our success. Operator, we can now open the call up for Q&A.
Thank you. The question and answer session will be conducted electronically. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by 1. If you are using the speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, star 1, we'll pause for just a moment. Our first question today will come from Matthew Bouley with Barclays.
Morning. Congrats on the quarter.
Thank you.
Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you.
I guess I wanted to start out on the gross margin, the 27.1% in the quarter. You guys historically talked about that 25% level as being normalized. Understanding we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves, obviously there was some incremental lumber capture in the quarter, I think, Peter, as you mentioned. Just longer term, as these operational initiatives roll out, as you continue to mix towards the value-added categories, is there any reason why structurally that an ongoing gross margin can't be stronger than 25% over time? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Matt. That's a good point. The movement in commodities, of course, influences our average gross margin and where we stand currently. I don't think there's any question for us internally that there's opportunity north of 25%. In the near term, it's, let say, drifting 25%-25.5%. When you start layering on the expected benefits of the growth in value add and manufactured components, as well as the work in operational excellence, we certainly see that increasing over time. That is accurate. Peter's way too kind. With the dollars we're investing in manufacturing facilities, they damn well better be higher margins in the future. Well done, Peter. Yeah, absolutely there should be higher margins in the future. That's the whole point of all the investments.
All right. Well said. Secondly, I was looking at slide 10 there. You guys gave some disclosures around the size of the manufactured products industry. It would seem that you guys have nearly a 25% share of that market. As you continue to invest in these facilities, do you guys longer term, again, target a market share of that particular industry? Do you think you can actually grow above even that market, or just enjoy how that market itself likely grows faster than broader housing? Thank you.
I'll just go back to my previous comment. We're putting a lot of time and money into growing that side of our business, and I absolutely believe we should be outpacing whatever that market is. We should be taking share in that market, and that's been our strategy, as we said in the opening comments, for over a decade now, and that will continue to be our strategy, is to grow that side of the business and take share. Again, back to our overall strategy, it's a quite fragmented market still. Plenty of opportunities for us to grow organically, inorganically, as well as the expanding use of the product by the broader home building industry. We're excited about it.
All right. I appreciate the thoughts. Thanks again.
Thank you.
Next, I'll move to Trey Grooms with Stephens Inc.
Good morning, gentlemen.
Hey, Trey.
Nice work in the quarter.
Thank you.
I guess a follow-up to the last question on the margins. Looking a little bit more near term, I think the 2Q guide would imply 25.7% or something like that at the midpoint. Given that value add mix is much heavier value add than it has been in the past, I guess, and was the last time we had an environment that wasn't influenced one way or the other by the volatility in lumber prices. Is this 25.7%, is that the way to think about the new norm as we look into the next couple of quarters? Or in that 25.7%, is there still any benefit at all from the lumber deflation there? Or just how do we think about that?
Yeah. There's, I would say, a very modest amount of influence left over in April from the deflation, but that's about it. I would say the bulk of that greater than 25 is, in our opinion, normal, and we'll just have to keep an eye on commodity prices to see how that might move that number around a bit.
All right. Thanks for that clarity. Then you're expecting to spend this year 25% of your total CapEx on growth initiatives, which includes value-added capacity, which you kind of talked about some of the different things there. How are you thinking about the revenue opportunity from these expansions that you're putting into place this year? Then also, I think you spent $20 million last year on something similar. How do we think about the impact this year coming from that?
Yeah. I would say the messaging is consistent with it. I wouldn't say there have been any changes to the guides we put around those facilities. They're generally $15 million-$20 million in sales with 10%-12% or higher, depending on the opportunity and the geographic location. In margins, we're talking about a pretty substantial return when it comes to the investment. It does take some time to get them out of the ground. Our ramp-up expectation is probably about 20 months from start to finish in terms of getting the facility running. That's sort of the challenge in laying out a number there, but it is certainly a tailwind, both in sales and EBITDA, based on the investments we've continued to be consistent with over the last couple of years and we expect to continue over the upcoming years.
With the advantage of, as we return to a more normalized leverage ratio, opportunities for tuck-ins to contribute to that as well.
Okay. Looking longer term, I know you laid out 25% of CapEx this year, longer term, is that the level of investment needed as we look forward to hit the type of incremental EBITDA numbers you're kind of looking at for value-added products over the longer term? Is that kind of a good assumption going forward on the spend?
We think so, yes. Our model has a pretty consistent growth amount in there. Admittedly, there is certainly a lot more to do there, more investment to come. Over the coming years, we think that consistent level of investment is a good baseline for the model. Yeah.
Okay. Last one for me, kind of on the page 10 there, where you have those 4 categories of manufactured products, you look at those 4 buckets there, with your expansion plans, what would that mix of kind of incremental capacity look like? Is it pretty balanced amongst those 4 buckets, or is there one area that's more attractive to you? Just any color there.
I would say the bulk of the investment would be in the roof trusses and the floor trusses. A lesser amount going to the wall panels and the pre-cut framing packages.
All right. That's it for me. I'll turn it over. Thanks a lot for taking my questions, and good luck.
Thanks, Trey.
Our next question we'll hear from Trey Morrish with Evercore ISI.
Thanks, guys. I add my congratulations on a great quarter.
Thanks, Trey. Good morning.
Wanted to just ask, just high level, conceptually, lumber prices really haven't rebounded this year. Granted, it's been a slow start to the year, and the housing environment has gradually improved. I'm just wondering from where you're sitting, why do you think that lumber has kind of stayed down where it has?
Well, I think last year was obviously an anomaly. Several things that triggered the rapid inflation we saw, then, of course, it fell off at the end of the year. I think what we've seen so far this year, we have had some additional capacity come on. We haven't had the delivery, the rail, and the trucking delays that we saw last year. I think housing demand has been a little soft at the first of the year. I think a lot of that was due to a little bit rougher weather year-over-year. I think as we get into the more of the seasonal building time, we would expect to see prices strengthen a little bit. We're not expecting a runaway like we saw last year.
Would expect as we get into the summer months, as demand picks up, it'll eat up some of that additional capacity that's come online at the mills. All in all
Still expecting it to be a relatively flat year from a commodity pricing standpoint.
Talking about your volume, very strong number, 6.8, on a single-family sales up 7.5. While the starts environment really over the last six months has been very underwhelming. Just kind of wondering why you've been able to see such strong growth, particularly this quarter, in such a tough environment. Why, as most of us believe that the housing environment is getting better as the year goes on, for a little bit of deceleration to Q?
I guess I can start there, Chad will sort of chime in. The end of the analysis we have seen, so far would indicate that our geographic exposure being so broadly spread out across the country helped to sort of insulate us from some of the disruption in certain key markets. I think that some of the markets that were hardest hit or markets that perhaps we don't have as strong presence in, so that worked to our advantage as well. Lastly, and the part that I would emphasize the most is this idea that, our value add and our manufactured components, the areas that we feel is the right balance in the portfolio sort of offering that we're able to provide, continued to be strong. In large reason because we haven't continued to invest, right?
We continue to invest from a sales force perspective, from an equipment perspective. Those aspects of the business continued to grow as a result of that focus and operational performance.
Yeah. This year, as Peter hinted at, is a little different. Last year at this time, it was more the western part of the country that was outperforming. This year for us, it's more in the southeast. I think some of that is weather related. I think west of the Mississippi, took a harder hit from a weather perspective. We're really performing well in some of these southeast markets and taking some shares. It's a little bit different than what we saw last year. I think that the geographic diversity, certainly, as Peter mentioned, helps that.
Okay. Got it. Thank you, Chad and Peter. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Next I'll move to Nishu Sood with Deutsche Bank.
Thank you. I wanted to start out with the sales expectation for the second quarter. You had a really nice daily sales day performance in one Q, offset a good proportion, 6.5% that offset a good proportion of the commodity price deflation. You're implying, I think, in your guidance with the 11%-13% commodity price pressure, and 8%-10% overall sales growth. You're implying that that slows the daily sales growth to about 3%. I was just trying to understand that 6.5% against the volatility that we've had in the housing market is a really nice performance. Why would that slow, especially given that housing has stabilized and even started to rebound here?
Yeah. I'm not surprised at all that you caught that, Nishu. My observation on this is that you know this as well as I do. One quarter does not a trend make. While we feel very confident about our performance and we're pleased with it seemed unwise to extrapolate a number that was so successful. Are we going to try to replicate that? Absolutely. From a forecasting perspective, we believe that the overall performance of the industry is one that we will approximate and hopefully beat, but we're trying to forecast what we believe to be a reasonable and deliverable target. We absolutely intend to try and beat.
Got it. Okay. A question on the investments in the manufacturing capacity. Clearly the continued focus on that through the housing wobble has turned out to be a great decision. Looks like the housing market may have still some room left to run here. At what stage, though, does it become late enough in the cycle, and how will you judge that to say that the investment should perhaps be slowed down? Because clearly adding capacity later in the cycle as closer to potential recession or volume declines would kind of aggravate the risk of those investments. How are you folks judging that? Are you taking it through the cycle view in these investments and that it could continue even later into the cycle?
I think a lot of that will depend on, as things play out, what we think the cycle's going to look like. Right now we're in the camp of growth can't go on forever, but at this point I wouldn't expect a significant downturn when there is a slowing or when we do kind of hit that peak of the cycle. We very well could, for the most part, invest right through it if that's the position we continue to take. A lot of it may be dependent on the market, this market specific that we're looking at. It's a balancing act as you know. We want to be long-term focused. We want to invest in where we think the building industry's heading. Will we have to tap the brakes here and there along the way? Perhaps.
Again, it's just going to kind of be a game-time decision as we get a little deeper into the cycle.
The only thing I would add to that is a complicating factor in trying to make the decision is that there's growth broadly in the use of that component product. There's also this aging of the ownership and the experience level in the industry. There's sort of this almost disconnected from the market opportunity to grow that part of the business. There's certainly a lot of tailwind there, and we don't want to leave money on the table. To your point, we always have to keep an eye on the end as well.
Got you. Just related to that, Clayton Homes, big news, 4,000 unit facility to serve Nashville, not only for their single-family builders, but arguably for competitors as well. As you know, obviously there are the lumber contractors, I'm sorry, the framing contractors that have entered the space as well. You continue to make investments, and obviously there's a growing level of interest from not only those players, but from startups as well. It's a pretty active space. As you folks sit and think about your relative position, what gives you the confidence that it's the distributor who is best positioned to longer term provide this service? Or do you think the landscape is large enough that there's room for different business models?
Personally, I think the landscape is large enough. As Peter mentioned, I think the trend to offsite construction will continue. I feel like that there's a growing opportunity out there. It doesn't surprise me at all that other players see the same thing and want to get into it. I think Buffett's a pretty smart guy, so maybe that just validates our investment thesis.
I do think we're better positioned than they are, just from the perspective that we can sell to everybody. It helps us to better utilize our capacity on an ongoing basis. Because we can sell to every home builder, if home builders try and do it themselves, or even framers that are aligned with a given home builder try and do it themselves, it's far more difficult for them to cover their fixed overhead over time. It's an advantage that we will possess no matter the market or the competitor.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you.
Mike Dahl with RBC Capital Markets will have our next question.
Morning. Thanks for taking my questions.
Morning.
My first question, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the market commentary a little bit and fully appreciate your ability to outperform your markets, just given the investments you're making and also some of the better trends that the builders have reported from an order standpoint. We did come out of 1Q with, I think, national single-family permits down 8% year-on-year, just trying to think through the cadence to get through to the 3%-6% that I think was your market growth, not just your specific company performance. Can you help us a little and maybe just frame what you think your markets, how you think your market's performed in the quarter?
I guess I can start. The commentary as far as our performance during the quarter, we saw the same, I would say, broad starts numbers in our markets that we would've expected in the national, with the exception of Northern California. It's probably the most obvious one. A little bit in some of the secondary MSAs. Clearly we're in the heart of most of the large ones. Not a massive difference, but certainly a difference, and California's a significant mover. That is absolutely one of the ways in which we think that 3%-6% for us perhaps differentiates a little bit from the national number. That is an area where we continue to see strength as we hear feedback from our home builder customers. Our sales force continues to hear that, yes, there has been a slowdown.
Yes, there's been a pause, if you will, there is absolutely a wave coming in terms of the rebound that you might expect to see from the reduction in home mortgage rates and the actions that the home builders have taken to recover the market.
Yeah. We had all our regional leaders in Dallas, I believe it was last week, just for an operational review, a lot of the feedback we got was exactly what Peter said. It seemed like towards the end of last year, this is specifically they were talking in the Southeast U.S., a lot of the builders, as rates were creeping up last year, started backing off on specs. The guys that were in last week fully expect and are hearing from their builder customers that now they're a little behind and they're going to have to build more specs than they had originally thought.
Some of it, of course, is they feel like there's some pent-up demand from all the wet weather we've had, they say the backlog is looking very strong over the next several months as these lots continue to dry out and construction can start to take place at a normal cadence.
Okay. Got it. Thanks. My second question, clearly strength on gross margins, which you've covered. I think some of the trade-off has been, I think as you've called out, have some variable comp that's tied to some of those levels of profitability. I was hoping, just like you gave your thoughts on what a new, quote unquote, "normal," at least in the near term on gross margins could be. Can you give us what your sense or how should we be thinking about kind of a normal run rate for SG&A right now?
Well, you're definitely seeing the two things that are happening. One is the reset with the deflation flowing through, also the outsized margins are driving a bit higher expense on the SG&A, the commissions and bonuses line. I do think that over the longer term, we are talking about still the 12%-15% fall through, still seeing a normalized EBITDA rate that is influenced both by that mix, the move towards value add, and the operational excellence initiatives. In the near term, no question that the EBITDA dollars will be negatively influenced by the reset and the deflation, in resetting the commodities and the resulting deflation. Again, offsetting with the underlying growth, that's kind of how we get to the full year number.
We'll just have to work through that messaging so that everybody is clearly able to understand the impact of the commodity movement and how that differentiates from sort of the core operations of the business.
Okay. I think that's helpful. Thanks, Peter. Chad.
Thank you.
John Baugh with Stifel will have our next question.
Good morning. Congrats. Thanks for completely ruining all our models of taking housing starts and lagging them 3-6 months.
Happy to help, John.
Yeah. I was wondering if we could, from a high level, talk about the value add. You've obviously been at it for, as you said, a decade. Talk to, I don't know, the barriers to entry, if you will, because it's obvious it's working. Is it your scale geographically? Is it your capital balance sheet? What precisely do you think keeps you in front of the competition as this is a clear direction that the people should be moving? Thank you.
Well, a big part of it is just the people. We've got people in this organization that have lived and breathed components their entire life, and they're really good at it. There is a bit of a barrier to entry, certainly higher than someone that just wants to open a lumber yard. When you're talking probably $6 million, $7 million to get a plant up and running, there is a degree of a barrier there. I think our broad footprint and our customer relationships across the country certainly help us when we do decide to put a new plant in, to fill it a lot quicker and to begin to cover that overhead, because we'll typically be in conversations with customers in that market long before we put a plant there and know that there is a level of demand there that will support it.
Look, I think it's just a combination of those things. As you already pointed out, we've been doing it a very long time. It's just something we feel like we're one of the best at. There is a competitive advantage there when you've been doing it as long as we have and have the personnel we have, and the customer relations we have coast to coast.
Chad, I know you've long since integrated ProBuild, but they were not as progressive with this opportunity as you. Obviously, it hinges on where you build a plant, but is there some sort of buy-in that you've achieved with, if you will, the legacy ProBuild people that also may be driving this?
Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's absolutely part of it. Then a lot of it is just demand from our customers, where we continue to see the market shift towards these products. Where there's gaps in our offering, we've got, in many cases, customers reaching out to us and saying, "When are you going to start selling me components?" It's a good position to be in.
Okay. Then just a quick comment maybe on the repair and remodel side. Existing home sales have been weak for quite some time, and there's some evidence out there there's choppiness in that market. What have you seen? Based on that, on your projection, how are you looking at that side of the market? Thank you, and good luck.
Thank you. Yeah. The R&R market, just to recap, we're primarily exposed in three key markets: Southern California, Alaska, and the upper Midwest. Southern California, as everybody is aware, has seen a pullback in the housing starts and certainly a lot of interruption from the weather at the start of this year. However, sort of the core R&R part of that business has been pretty stable, pretty healthy. Alaska's been a headwind for us the past couple of years. They've struggled with the reset and the oil prices, but things have leveled off there, and they've started to see some growth, which we're pleased with. It's a great operation for us. While we continue to, I think, see a bit slower than normal growth in the Midwest, it's not been enough to offset the recovery more broadly.
I think it's a strong part of the business for us right now. We always anticipate that it's going to be a bit more stable than the volatility of the single-family starts market. That's sort of proven out. While a quarter here, a quarter there might be weaker, we've seen it be pretty consistent.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Next, we'll move to Megan McGrath with Buckingham Research.
Hi, good morning. Thanks. Most of my questions have been answered, but maybe a couple of big-picture ones on your value-added businesses. With housing starts having slowed a little bit, I know builders aren't saying they're getting much relief on the labor side. Are your conversations with them in terms of their long-term needs that you're meeting, are they changing at all? Is it less about meeting the labor availability problems and more about cost, or are the conversations staying the same?
I would say they're pretty consistent. As I said earlier, I fully expect as we get into the seasonal building time, those labor constraints are going to be just as real as they were last year. Obviously, they hit the peak during the late spring and summer when most of the building activity is trying to take place. No, so far, those conversations really haven't changed.
Okay. When you think about the market potential, the slide that you showed us in terms of the rising share of those manufactured products, is part of that assumed growth dependent on your ability to kind of bring these options to market at a lower price as you become more efficient in your manufacturing? Is that still a barrier for the builders? Some are saying, "We just can't make it pencil.
I think our argument is that the overall studies would say it proves itself. We can charge what we believe to be a fair market price and the benefits to the home builder in speed, waste, safety, the quality, plus the computer-aided design and engineered aspect of the componentry generally takes cost out just from a pure lumber perspective. We've had very good success at getting paid a fair margin and a fair price and still having it be a benefit to the home builder. We don't think there's a cost-out component that's net needed in order to be a competitor. Not to say we're not going to continue to fight for it. We think the efficiency is where we continue to separate ourselves from competitors.
Okay, great. Thanks.
Thank you.
Next, we'll move to Matt McCall with Seaport Global Securities.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody.
Morning.
Can we maybe look at the manufacturing products? Any way you could give us an idea of the same location growth there? I think that the growth of 8%, if I just average the other non-commodity categories, your growth in manufacturing products was double the other categories. I guess I'm trying to understand the growth that's from the market, the same location share gains you're generating, and then maybe the share gains from new facilities that you've been able to recognize.
I appreciate the question. It is a really good question. No.
Okay. All right.
Basically, A, I don't have the materials in front of me. B, at this stage, we haven't made the decision to start breaking out. Clearly, we're going to communicate that as part of our long-range plan messaging over time. We're just not ready to do that today.
Okay. That's fair. The pricing and margin structure for manufactured products is a lot of lumber there as well. How does that work in a volatile commodity environment? Do you see the same impact from a profitability perspective, or are the contracts structured differently?
It is a component, obviously, but there's a lot more that goes into the manufacturing of a truss as opposed to distributing sticks. While it can impact that manufactured component business, it's not nearly to the degree it would be on commodity lumber. You've got design costs, you've got labor costs, you've got other things that go into the components that kind of helps insulate it from the wild swings that you can get on the distributed framing products.
Okay. All right. That's helpful. Thanks, Chad. I guess the final one, and there have been a few questions around this, but the starts projection you gave of 3%-6%, I don't remember what the assumption was or the outlook was last quarter, and you've talked about some of the regional improvements, but can you just go through, first of all, what was it? And what were some of the specific geographies that changed to help you move it up to 3%-6% this year?
Yeah. Honestly, we did not provide full year guide in the last quarter guide, really because of the uncertainty. The home builders weren't willing to guide, and we didn't think it was wise for us to get out in front of them. Subsequent to that, we have heard a lot of commentary, a lot more affirming, if you will, in their expectations for the year, as well as in the commentary we've heard directly from them. We feel much better. I think that 3%-6%, it might be a little richer based on the first quarter results than what we had modeled when we gave sort of our cash flow guidance. As the increase in cash flow guidance would indicate, we think there's been some strengthening beyond even our expectations.
Admittedly, offset a little bit by the continued flatness of the commodity pricing. I think part of our optimism, the balance of the year is from what I talked about earlier when we had the regional leaders in a few weeks ago, that there does feel like some pent-up demand due to the weather, and the commentary from some of the builders that they feel like they're a little behind on specs.
Okay. Thank you, guys.
Thank you.
Next we'll move to Jay McCanless with Wedbush.
Hey, good morning. The first question I had was on the logistics. I think you guys said y'all had rolled that out to 170 locations. Can you just remind us where you are in that and how much longer that rollout's going to take?
We expect to be done with the bulk of the rollout at the end of this year. That won't be to every location. It's the larger locations. We're going to pause at that point and see how much further we think we need to roll it out. It may not make sense to roll out to a single-site market, for example. You get much more benefit in larger markets where you got multiple locations trying to work together to make deliveries and serve the customer. We'll finish phase 1 at the end of this year, and then, as I said, pause and see if there is a next phase or not.
The other question I had, and I know this isn't probably the best comp, but if you just look at framing lumber, it seems like you guys are going to have the commodity headwind for this quarter, assuming prices stay where they are now, and then third quarter, but then fourth quarter, it looks like it gets a lot easier. Is that how you guys are thinking about it internally, if prices stay flat, and if so, what type of effect, assuming that that commodity deflation lessens through the year, what type of effect should we expect on gross margin?
Yeah. I would say on the commodity value impact, you hit the nail on the head. We will see a fading headwind to the sales dollars. The only thing I want to make sure I point out is just we just account for the lapping that we will see. I don't think anybody anticipates a significant deflationary environment in the fourth quarter of this year, which would cause us to not be able to replicate the large tailwind from the deflationary impact in the fourth quarter. Just keep that in mind. There are those two different pieces, right? There's, of course, the baseline core operating impact of the value of commodities, and then there's the short-term swings or flows in gross margin % that we see in any given quarter and the way that those compare.
For example, this quarter, we saw the tailwind not only from this year's deflation, but also the lack of inflation from last year.
Got it. Okay, great. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thanks, Jay.
That will conclude today's question and answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Crow for any additional or closing remarks.
Thank you. Again, really appreciate everyone joining our call today, and we certainly look forward to updating you on the progress of our initiatives in the quarters ahead. If you have any follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to Bennett or Peter. Thank you.
That will conclude today's call.