Good morning and thank you for joining us today for the Hovnanian Enterprises Fiscal 2021 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. An archive of the webcast will be available after the completion of the call and run for 12 months. This conference is being recorded for rebroadcast and all participants are currently in a listen only mode. Management will make some opening remarks about the 3rd quarter results and then open the line for questions. The company will also be webcasting a slide presentation along with the opening comments from management.
These slides are available on the Investors page on the company's website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should now log on to the website. I'll now turn the call over to Jeff O'Keefe, Vice President, Investor Relations. Jeff, please go ahead.
Thank you, Jonathan, and thank you all for participating in this morning's call to review the results for our Q3, which ended July 31, 2021. All statements in this conference call that are not historical facts should be considered as forward looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward looking statements. Such forward looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements related to the company's goals and expectations with respect to its financial results for future financial periods. Although we believe that our plans, intentions and Expectations reflected in or suggested by such forward looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such plans, intentions or expectations will be achieved.
By their nature, forward looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, are not guarantees of future performance or results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict or quantify. Therefore, actual results could differ materially and adversely from those forward looking statements as a result of a variety of factors. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors are described in detail in the sections entitled Risk Factors and Management's Discussion and Analysis, Particularly, there's a portion of MD and A entitled Safe Harbor statement in our annual report on Form 10 ks for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2020, and subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as otherwise required by applicable We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, change circumstances or any other reason. Joining me today are Ara Hovnanian, Chairman, President and CEO Larry Storozby, Executive Vice President and CFO and Brad O'Connor, Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer.
I'll now turn the call over to our CEO. Aaron, go ahead.
Thanks, Jeff. I'm going to review our Q3 results and then address the current market environment. As usual, Larry Sorsby, our CFO, will follow me with more details and then we'll open it up for a little Q and A. On Slide 5, We compare our Q3 results to the guidance we gave on our last conference call. COVID related supply chain disruption delayed the completion Some homes resulting in slightly lower revenues, nonetheless, our adjusted gross margin, SG and A ratio, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted pretax income were all better than the guidance range that we gave.
During our Q2 conference call, we talked extensively about the impact of Phantom stock expense on our SG and A. During the Q3, our stock price declined, which resulted in a $6,700,000 reduction in Phantom stock expense. In the 3rd column, we show what our results would have been without the benefit from the Phantom stock expense reduction. Without that benefit, We still beat our guidance for SG and A, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted pretax profit. Gross margin was not affected.
Moving on to Slide 6, we show year over year comparisons for our 3rd quarter performance metrics. Given the supply chain disruptions and labor shortages we've all experienced as an industry, we're pleased with our strong performance in the 3rd quarter. Starting in the upper left hand portion of the slide, you can see that our total revenues for the 3rd quarter increased 10% to $691,000,000 Moving to the upper right hand portion of the slide, you can see that our adjusted gross margin increased 460 basis points to 22.1% this year compared to 17.5% in last year's Q3. This clearly illustrates that we've been able to raise home prices more than enough to offset the higher labor and material costs that we've incurred. Lumber prices have recently declined from Given the significant decline in random length contracts, We expect our price for lumber will continue to decrease further in future months.
While these lower lumber prices will not benefit Margins on homes we delivered this quarter, starting in our Q2 of 'twenty two, we expect our gross margins will see an additional benefit from the significant reduction in our lumber costs. In the lower left hand quadrant of the slide, You can see that our SG and A was 8.7% for the Q3 compared to 9.5% last year. If you ignore the benefit of the Phantom Sock expense, it would have been 9.7% for this year. In the lower right hand quadrant of the slide, We show that adjusted EBITDA increased 59% from $65,000,000 in last year's Q3 to $103,000,000 this year. On Slide 7, You can see that our adjusted pretax income improved to $63,000,000 compared to $15,000,000 of profit last year.
On Slide 8, we show that our net income for the Q3 of 'twenty one was $48,000,000 compared to $15,000,000 in the same quarter last year. Moving now to the sales environment. On the right hand portion of Slide 9, we show contracts per community for the Q3 in each of the last three years. You can see that our sales pace jumped 75% from a historically normal pace in 2019 to a white hot pace in 2020. Remember, this was just after the March April lowland sales because of COVID and before we started to increase prices aggressively and began to meet our sales.
Our contracts In this year's Q3, we're better than 2019, but far below 2020. The sales pace We achieved in the summer of 2020 was unsustainable. We've been saying for some time now that comparisons would be very difficult because of the white hot sales pace that we saw last year. Further to the left, we show that the average for the Q3 from 19.97 through 2,002 was 11.4. That was a time that was neither a boom nor a bust for the housing industry.
Our sales pace in the Q3 of 2021 slowed to a more historically typical pace, but at significantly better margins than last year. This more typical pace is certainly more sustainable. As the industry sales pace returns to normal, It should also help contain labor and material cost pressures. On Slide 10, we show contracts per community on a monthly basis from September through August. The most recent month is in dark green, the same month a year ago is in light blue and the same month 2 years ago is shown in gray.
For the past 4 months, our contracts have been lower than last year's unsustainable pace. However, we compare favorably every month with 20 nineteen's more typical contract pace. It would be easy to become preoccupied with the sales pace this year compared to the higher Increases in the most recent months compared to the same months in 2019 pre COVID when demand was closer to historical averages. It's clear from this trend that the COVID-nineteen sales frenzy has given way to a more rational sales pace. We think the new sales pace is healthy, slightly above average and much more sustainable.
Let me take a moment to talk about increases in home prices. On the left side of Slide 12, You can see that our average sales price on deliveries was up 13% year over year to 440 $3,000 in the 3rd quarter. On the right hand portion of the slide, you can see that our average sales price on new contracts increased 27% from $396,000 last year to $503,000 in this year's Q3. We believe these dramatically higher prices dampen the COVID sales for MZ that we experienced last year. And as I said a moment ago, we've transitioned to a more sustainable sales pace that's in line with historical averages.
You saw that the higher home prices in our deliveries have already increased our gross margins. We expect these higher home prices in our new contracts to generate further increases in our gross margins. The combination of higher gross margins, along with our expected growth in community count, should have a positive impact On Slide 13, we show what our community count was at the end of every quarter over the last year. As you can see, primarily due to selling through communities at a significantly higher than normal pace, our community count has been declining each quarter up until the most recent quarter. We ended the Q3 of July 21 with 120 communities.
This was up slightly from last quarter and is the first time we had a sequential increase in community count since the Q4 of 2019. Given no material changes in current market conditions, we expect our community count to grow to approximately 135 communities at the end of the fiscal year. This was the same level of communities that we had at the beginning of this fiscal year. In fiscal 2022, we expect further growth in our community count. Our community count is likely to fluctuate due to the each quarter due to the opening of new communities and the timing of closing out The combination of a return to a more rational sales pace per community with the reduction in community count certainly impacted our absolute level of contracts this quarter.
Our upcoming community count growth Our contract dollars decreased to $609,000,000 in the Q3 of fiscal 'twenty one compared to $882,000,000 in the same quarter last year. This was due to a number of factors: metering of sales in many of our communities, Selling out of communities ahead of schedule, COVID-nineteen related delays for new community openings And the last summer that make the comparisons very difficult, all of these you've heard many times before from us and many of our peers. Much of our decline is related to community count. We are making excellent progress in our land position, But there is a lag between a land contract and the first home sales, and that certainly impacts our absolute level of contracts. As we will discuss later in our presentation, we project a return to last year's community business for this year end, our fiscal year end, and we've increased our lots controlled by 20% over the past year.
We're pleased with our progress on land acquisition, and we plan to be able to grow our revenues in fiscal 20222023 even with today's more normalized sales pace per community. The supply chain disruptions, Along with shortages of labor have led to longer cycle times. The cycle time increases vary from market to market and product to product. But when you look at the average for the entire company, cycle times have increased about 30 to 45 days. The average house that should take 4 months to build is now taking 5 to 5.5 months to build, but we've already built these new cycle times into our guidance.
All signs indicate that fiscal 2021 is expected to be an outstanding year for us and fiscal 2022 should improve further. I'll now turn it over to Larry Sorsby, our Chief Financial Officer.
Thanks, Ara. I'm going to start with the progress we've made in growing our lot position. Turning to Slide 14. We added 4,512 newly controlled consolidated lots during the 3rd quarter. During that Same quarter, we had 1587 deliveries and lot sales, resulting in a net increase of 2,925 For the 12 month period ending July 31, 2021, we added 11,000 594 newly controlled lots delivered 6,340 homes and lots, resulting in a net increase of 5,254 Lots.
For the trailing 12 months, this represents us controlling new lots at a rate of 183 percent of home deliveries and bodes well for our expected future growth in community count and home deliveries. Our land acquisition teams continue to find new land positions for us. Our recent land acquisitions were underwritten with contract paces that match our current slower sales environment. That pace is consistent with the sales pace we achieved before the COVID surge in home demand. Additionally, We underwrote those recent acquisitions with significantly higher lumber cost in effect at the time.
As a result Of the recent declines in lumber prices, we now expect even higher margins on those land parcels. We continue to feel very good about the land acquisitions we've made over the last year. On the left hand portion of Slide 15, We show our community count for the past 5 quarters. As Eira mentioned earlier, our community count has been going down each quarter. At the end of the Q3 of fiscal 2021, we finally changed the tide and have now achieved a sequential increase in community count.
We expect another sequential increase in the 4th quarter that is large enough to grow our community count back to roughly the same level we had at the beginning of this fiscal year. On the right hand portion of the slide, we show the lot count at the end of the same 5 quarters. For each quarter shown, our lot count has increased sequentially. Year over year, our lot count increased by over 5,000 lots or by 20%. We have been steadily increasing our lock position.
Keep in mind, there's a lag between when we control the locks and when we can open a community. The communities we put under control this quarter will be open for sale in 2022 and beyond. This is worth repeating. Our ability to increase our lot supply clearly indicates the progress we've made towards growing community count in future periods. Virtually all of the land and communities necessary to achieve expected further growth and profits During fiscal 2022 are already under contract.
Today, our land acquisition teams are primarily focused Under the assumption of a more historically normal housing demand market going forward, we are controlling new lots and planning for further revenue growth in future years. Turning now to Slide 16. During the Q3 of fiscal 2021, Our land and land development spend was $178,000,000 a 9% increase over the same quarter a year ago. For the trailing 12 months, our land spend increased 36% to 761,000,000 dollars compared with $558,000,000 during the same period last year. This further demonstrates that we're investing the money needed to grow our community count.
Turning to Slide 17. Even with that Increase in land spend and paying off $111,000,000 of 2022 notes early, We ended the Q3 with $308,000,000 of liquidity, well above the high end of our liquidity targets. We continue to have excess liquidity, and our land teams are busy contracting additional land parcels across the country today. Turning to Slide 18. Compared to our peers, you see that we still have one of the highest percentages of land controlled via options.
We continue to use land option whenever possible in order to achieve high inventory turns, enhance our returns on capital and to reduce risk. We're pleased to control 66% of our land through options, which is up from 61% in the same quarter 1 year ago. Looking at our consolidated inventories in the aggregate, including the $98,000,000 of inventory not owned, We have an inventory book value of $1,300,000,000 net of $158,000,000 of impairments. Turning now to Slide 19. Compared to our peers, you see that we continue to have the 2nd highest inventory turnover rate High inventory turns are a key component of our overall strategy.
Turning now to Slide 20. As we promised, now that we've achieved a sustainable level of higher profitability, we are now focused on repairing our balance sheet. On this slide, we show our debt maturity ladder at the end of the 3rd quarter. On July 31, 2021, We paid off in full 1 year early $111,000,000 of our 10% senior secured notes due July 2022 at par. Additionally, on August 2, we paid off in full 3 years early $70,000,000 Of our 10.5 percent secured notes due July 2024 at the call price of 102.5 Our currently undrawn revolving credit facility ahead of its maturity in the Q1 of fiscal 2023.
This facility is at the very top of our capital structure. After that, we don't have any debt coming due until the Q1 of fiscal 2026. Given our $447,000,000 deferred tax asset, We will not have to pay federal income taxes on approximately $1,800,000,000 of future pretax earnings. This tax benefit will generate significant cash flow in the years to come and will accelerate our progress in significantly improving our balance sheet. As we continue to post strong results, we believe we should be able to refinance our debt structure at lower rates, evaluate our capital structure and explore transactions to further strengthen our balance sheet and our financial performance.
On Slide 21, We show that our total backlog, including domestic and unconsolidated joint ventures at the end of the 3rd quarter, increased 23% to 4,072 homes. You can also see that the dollar value of this backlog increased 44% to $1,990,000,000 The strength of this backlog, Including a solid expected gross margin sets us up nicely for strong results over the remainder of this fiscal year and into fiscal 2022. Our financial guidance for both the Q4 and the full year for fiscal 2021 assumes no adverse changes in current market conditions and excludes further impact to SG and A expense from Bantam stock expenses related solely to stock price movements from the $104.39 stock price at the end of our fiscal 2021 Q3. However, our guidance for the quarter and for the year include phantom stock impacts we already absorbed in the second and third For every $4 that our stock price increases or decreases, there is approximately $1,000,000 increase or decrease, respectively, of incremental phantom stock expense. On Slide 22, we provide guidance for the Q4 of fiscal 2021.
We expect to report total revenues for the Q4 of fiscal 2021 to be between $830,000,000 $880,000,000 We also expect gross margins to be in the range of 21.5% to 22.5%, up substantially compared to the 20.2% in last year's 4th quarter. SG and A as a percent of total revenues expected to be between 8.5% and 9.5% compared with 9.6% last year. Excluding land related charges and gains or losses on extinguishing of debt, we expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $100,000,000 $115,000,000 the high end of our guidance. This represents a 32% increase compared to the same quarter last year. Finally, we expect our adjusted pretax profit for the Q4 of fiscal 2021 to grow to between $60,000,000 $75,000,000 compared to a $45,000,000 profit in the same period last year.
Turning now to Slide 23. We are increasing our full year guidance. We expect to report total revenues between $2,800,000,000 $2,850,000,000 up from $2,340,000,000 last year. We also expect gross margins to be in the range of 21% to 22% compared to 18.4% last year and SG and A as a percentage of total revenues to be between 9.5% 10.5% compared with 10.3% in the prior year. This includes the $10,800,000 of incremental phantom expense that from the 2nd 3rd quarters.
Excluding land related charges and gains and losses on extinguishment debt, we expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $345,000,000 $360,000,000 up between 47% 54% compared to last year. Finally, we expect our adjusted pretax profit for fiscal 2021 to grow to between $175,000,000 $190,000,000 up an amazing 243% to 2 73% compared to last year's earnings. This is an increase from our previous guidance of $150,000,000 to $170,000,000 Assuming a 25% tax rate, similar to what we saw in the Q3 of fiscal 2021, Our trailing 12 month PE ratio for the closing stock price of $93.83 yesterday was 5.2, significantly below the average PE for the homebuilders of 8.7. Additionally, we are currently trading at 4.5x our earnings guidance for this fiscal year. As we look forward to fiscal 2022, we expect that today's slower contract pace, which is more in line with historical norms, combined with higher home prices, higher gross margins and increases in community count should lead to further growth in both total revenues and adjusted pre tax profits in fiscal 2022.
We expect to begin fiscal 2022 with a very strong Q1 compared to the Q1 of last year or really this year, fiscal 2021, especially with respect to improvements in our adjusted pretax profit. Turning now to Slide 24. Here, we illustrate the growth we've seen in adjusted EBITDA. On the left hand portion of the slide, you can see that our 4th quarter estimate for adjusted EBITDA is 23% more than the 4th quarter of 2020. On the right hand portion of the slide, we show EBITDA for 2019, 2020 and our expectation for 2021.
In 2020, we achieved a 35% growth in adjusted EBITDA. In 'twenty one, We now expect to achieve an additional 50% growth in EBITDA. These increases are representative of the progress we've made in materially improving our operating results. On Slide 25, You can see how our key credit metrics have improved over the past few years. Total debt Net debt to adjusted EBITDA declined from 9.3x in 2019 to 3.4x projected for fiscal 2021.
Adjusted EBITDA to interest incurred has more than doubled from 1x in 2019 to 2.2x projected for fiscal 2021. Assuming we hit the midpoint of our fiscal 2021 guidance for pretax Profit, our shareholders' equity will grow by $661,000,000 from 20 nineteen's fiscal year end level. Given our expectations to once again grow profits in fiscal 2022, our book value will continue to very rapidly grow. Both Moody's and S and P have recently recognized our improved performance with upgrades to a positive outlook, And Moody's also upgraded our credit rating by 1 notch. As we achieve our fiscal 2021 guidance And continue to generate improvements in revenues and profits going forward, we expect further rating upgrades from both credit agencies.
These improved credit statistics and rating upgrades should help us refinance our debt structure at lower rates and improve terms. Now I'll turn it back over to Ara for some brief closing remarks.
Thanks, Larry. As you just heard, we expect to close Fiscal 2021 with a solid 4th quarter, which would make the full year our most profitable year since 2006. We're pleased that we've been able to raise our full year guidance. And more importantly, we expect further growth and profitability in fiscal 'twenty 2. Heading into the COVID-nineteen frenzy that the entire homebuilding industry experienced, we clearly did not have enough new communities in our land pipeline to open fast enough to replace the communities we sold out much more rapidly than we expected.
However, as we just illustrated, with the 20% year over year increase in our lot count, community count growth is coming and it's coming soon. As we discussed, our margins are increasing. During the Q4 of fiscal 2021, We have a large number of homes to deliver as well as a big slug of communities that will be opening for sale. There's always a possibility of Further COVID related delays during our Q4, but we believe we factored in reasonable assumptions for the current environment into our guidance. I know that I can count on all of our associates to execute our plans for the 4th quarter, which should set us up nicely to be in an advantageous position to grow both revenues and adjusted pre tax profits Further in fiscal 2022, I look forward to sharing our improved results in future periods.
That concludes our formal remarks, and
Participants will be limited to one question and one follow-up, after which they will be able to get back into the queue to ask other questions. We will now open the call to questions. Our first question comes from the line of Alex Barron from Housing Research Center. Your question please.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. And obviously, Barry, congratulations on the turnaround and everything that I wanted to ask about the prospects of refinancing some of your debt, which obviously right now Yes, it is very low rates for most other builders. Kind of wondering, is that something that's already in the works? And if so, are you also planning potentially to raise equity as part of some transaction like that?
Alex, we continue to explore the potential of refinancing our capital structure. We believe that we could Do so today at lower rates than we have now. What we're kind of Struggling with as we continue to improve our results, we think we deserve even lower rates than what we I think we could actually do today. So we're kind of balancing the timing of when to do it. With respect to potentially issuing equity as a component of doing some kind of refinancing debt structure, we've not ruled that out.
And if we could issue a modest amount of equity to get a significant lower rate And completely refinance our entire capital structure, I think it's something we would give serious consideration to.
I'll just add that we're obviously forecasting very solid cash flow. And as we discussed and Larry discussed, Our debt maturity ladder gives us a long runway, so we don't have to rush and we can play The market right and look for the right rate for us.
Yes. No, that makes sense. I mean, Your equity is obviously going in the right direction. I guess the other question I had was, your community count projection Seems to imply a pretty big jump in the 4th quarter. And I'm just kind of curious on a couple of things.
One is, Is that going to be more near term or is that going to be more towards the end of the quarter? I guess what I'm trying to figure out is What impact it might have on orders and the other thing related to orders is many other builders including yourselves I think have been Kind of withholding the level of orders or homes that you're willing to release to the market to kind of adjust the backlog and so forth. So Do you guys feel that you're already past that adjustment period where you can start taking the foot off the brakes a little bit? Can you comment on that?
Sure. Well, first, as I think we mentioned, I think we're back to where we made more normalized sales pace Per community, we've been we've gotten there by balancing metered releases and price increases. Last year, in our Q3, we had just this burst of sales. And frankly, Following what happened in March April in the middle of the COVID shutdown, we were very hesitant, as were many builders, to turn off the spigot, But it was an unsustainable number. So we feel like we're in a good position right now.
We are still metering some sales. We want to match our ability to start homes, sell homes and deliver homes. So we are still metering in Many communities across the country, but we feel that's healthy and we're in a pretty solid position.
Okay. And on the timing of the communities, do you feel it's more back end weighted or more near? Well,
I mean, we're halfway through the quarter. So we're not giving specific guidance, but we're comfortable we'll get there. We only have a month and a half left to go. We feel like we're comfortable that we'll meet our numbers. Keep in mind, it is very difficult to be Precise because if you sell a couple too many in one community, that drops that community count once it falls below 10.
If there is a 2 week delay in opening a new community, it can throw it into the next quarter. So it's always very tricky to
Alex, to try to give you a little clarity, if I was sitting in your shoes and we're not giving you specific guidance on this point, I'd wait a little bit The second half of the quarter rather than the first half.
Got it. And if I could ask one more, obviously supply chain issues have been a big deal In the last few months, just curious as to whether you guys think today, where you sit today on supply chain Problems and shortage and so forth, is it better, the same or worse than 3 months ago?
I'd say it depends. Generally, it's Sprint problem with a different product in a different market every week. It's like the Classic whack a mole problem. Different problem raises its head and we jump on it. That's been a major focus of our company.
So I'd say it's still kind of with us. We've tried to incorporate that into our guidance and projections. Our cycle time is Still running higher, as we mentioned earlier, we expect at some point, as all of the builders catch up on their starts And as sales for everyone start to return to normal levels that some of the shortages and the labor shortages as well as material shortages We'll calm down and return to normal and that we'll be able to get back to regular cycle times.
Great. I'll get back in the queue. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Vincent Foley from Barclays. Your question please.
Good morning, guys. So Larry, when we're talking about a refinancing of the capital structure here and you Are sort of waiting on borrowing costs to come down. Should we think about refinancing in the context of going from A secured to unsecured or is your priority right now in a refinancing just Interest savings. And then as a follow on, can you give us a sense of how longer term you think about a balance between secured debt and unsecured debt and or are you planning on sort of a more plain vanilla capital structure over the longer term?
So, Mark, I'm going to take your last question first. And we absolutely want to have a more plain vanilla capital structure. I mean, It's been an interesting last decade, but we'd like to get back to doing plain vanilla deals rather than interesting, intriguing, exciting deals. And our focus I think our primary focus is on lowering the rate, But we believe that our improved performance does justify being able To do a refinance on an unsecured basis. So we balance it, and I'm not ruling out Something that is still secured, but in the not too distant future, we would expect to be totally unsecured.
And if we can't get unsecured today, we may wait until we can. So it's just a balance of how much lower rate can we get and different alternative structures.
And then as a follow-up, I guess one of the biggest questions We get asked is, why the wait here? And when I look at your slides and where leverage has gone In 2 years, 6 turns lower leverage, 2021 is going to be the best year in the company's history. Next year could be even better. But a year from now, who knows what the housing cycle is going to look like, where inflation is going to be, what the economy is going to look like. So why not do something sooner rather than later and take advantage
of it? I think we would do something this Sooner rather than later, if we felt that we were getting a rate Similar to peers that are similarly positioned to us. So it's not something we're ruling out At all, we're interested in refinancing at materially lower rates than what we have today. And as Eira mentioned, we don't have a gun pointed at our head. They have to do it right this second.
But I understand the risk that you're pointing out that if we wait, The high yield market might run away from us. So we certainly are very conscious of the trade offs that are out there in that regard. But we believe as we continue to post very strong results, Including this Q3 and now the 4th quarter projection, the full year is going up, that The debt market should be giving us additional credit. And as we see that additional credit Come in the form of being able to do a deal at more attractive rates. We're not ruling that out at all.
We may Well, do so. So it's just a matter of getting rates comparable to what we think similarly situated peers have today.
I'll also add that our call premiums will drop substantially in the coming months. So that's certainly something that we look at as well.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alan Ratner from Zelman and Associates. Your question please.
Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. So just curious moving away from the balance sheet a little bit, just curious, Are you guys involved at all in the build for rent space? Several of your peers have announced either ventures in that area or are actively selling homes to single family rental operators.
I'm curious if you're partaking and more broadly what impact you're seeing from build for rent in your overall markets, either from competition on land, labor, materials, demand, etcetera?
We have one transaction that we're finalizing now of a couple of 100 homes, And that will be our first. It's not a primary focus. We feel like Our capital is well served right now in our primary business, and we're trying to stay focused on replenishing. I'm not saying we're ruling it out and we're certainly taking a putting our foot in the water, but we're not ready to dive in full force just yet.
I would just add one more thing, Alan. Certainly over the last year, demand from traditional sources have been So strong, that's where our focus has been. We've had and the industry has had Trouble getting homes started as fast as we got demand. The for rent market is a nice balance longer term and Something that I think if we could actually find a relationship on a longer term basis is something that we'd find intriguing.
Got it. Appreciate your comments there. 2nd on the pricing, really strong increase in your average order price this quarter. I'm not sure how much of that 27% was like for like versus mix driven. But just curious, when you kind of are seeing the balance now with absorptions Just pulling back to what you consider to be more normal levels.
Would you expect to take the foot off the gas a little bit on pushing price? Or is that something where you still feel like there's an opportunity to drive price higher, given how strong demand is today?
I'd say we're back to more normalized Pricing reviews, there was a point in the last 6 months we would We don't need to raise prices every week or 2 or even every sale or 2 because Lumber costs were going up and that was really a cost concern. I'd say right now we're back to a normal environment. So I don't think I would expect the kind of price increases that we've witnessed over the last year.
On the flip side, Ara, are you starting to see any incentivizing going on in your markets from other builders? I know it's very early up from that standpoint, But a few have mentioned that's a possibility as you get into the 4th quarters, which always happens this time of year. It didn't happen last year, but just curious if you're starting to see any of that?
We're seeing very little thus far, but we are not primarily a spec builder. We're More than the majority is build to order. So we're not as influenced by people doing end of the year spec discounts. I'm sure it will return at some point to some normalcy in terms of concessions, And you would think that might hurt margins. On the other hand, our primary building material, lumber, Has been dropping and will likely drop quite a bit more.
So we feel pretty comfortable about margins given those two factors.
Got it. All right. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Our next question is a follow-up from the line of Alex Barron from Housing Research Center. Your question please.
Yes, thanks. So one of the things that we've been or I wanted to ask, Is this issue about the Phantom stock and is this accounting going to go on for many, many quarters or is it just kind of constrained to this year and then it kind of Once it's frozen into place, that's it.
The way that works is as the After this fiscal year, the performance will be set, but it's paid over the subsequent 3 years. So it will trail off 60% of it gets paid in January. So a large more than half of the variability goes away in this coming January and then a year later another, I think it's 20% and then 20% the following year.
Okay. Got it. The other question I had was on your margins. Obviously, you guys Had a good increase in the last few quarters, especially this quarter. A few other builders have expressed Confidence in the direction of margins, I think you guys did too.
I think you mentioned that you expect the order margins to improve by 2nd quarter relative to lumber costs. But some other builders have seen even larger Margin increases, do you feel like there's more potential here? Is there something that would Offset the lumber expense from allowing margins to improve? Like just any thoughts around margins that you can offer?
Yes. I think we're optimistic about the outlook for further margin growth. Part of it is driven by the lumber costs. Of course, that will be offset with some of the other Materials that are in shortages and sometimes you have to pay a premium for that. But as we pointed out, The price of our contracts was higher than the average price of our Deliveries per home, so we feel good about what the margins in our backlog look like compared to what we just delivered.
Having said that, as you can appreciate, I think as everyone appreciates, it's a very difficult market to project. There are supply chain issues popping up all over the place. And unfortunately, sometimes you have to deal with them by paying a high price. So We're not going to be too accurate or too specific in margin guidance, but we're feeling very comfortable right Now that we will see some growth coming up.
Okay, great. I think that's it for me for now. Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Luther from Emerson. Your question please.
Hey, guys. Great quarter, great execution. I appreciate you taking my question. First question was Any ESG initiatives you might be working on and the timing that you might kind of go into that? And then a clarification, When you look at your multiples, you're based on we're getting fully taxed multiples, I believe.
I think you're more like 3x cash EPS for this year and next, is that correct? Two questions. One on
Yes. We don't focus on cash multiples, but we do after tax EPS and that's The number we were referring
to.
Yes. So after well, it was a after tax EPS was the multiple you gave at like 4 ish to 5 ish For next year initially? And so I guess on a given your tax shield, you reduced it by the tax rate, so you're more like 3 times kind of a cash EPS, not cash flow from operations,
but cash flow from operations. Yes, I understand where you're going. We haven't done that exact Cal, but directionally, you're correct. Yes, our cash flow is far higher than our after tax income because
As a proxy for what I call cash EPS, which is simply just your Free tax plus your tax rate, I get you at close to a 33% free cash flow or what would be free cash flow yield. Yes. And I don't mean to say that that's cash flow because you're obviously growing communities and doing good things to grow the business We'll benefit shareholders. So if you didn't grow, you have the free cash flow. If you did, you might have less free cash flow.
So is that I guess that's the way I look at it.
I think you're going to not hear us object to you saying that you think we're even cheaper than what we Said on an after tax basis, we do not believe the market on either the equity or the debt side is yet giving us Credit for our dramatically improved performance. But we think as we continue to improve, We'll make believers out of both the debt market and the equity market, and there's upside.
I will add 2 other points. The PE is one focus. Some analysts are focused on price to book. Our book value, we've obviously Increased our projection for this year that will increase our book value at year end if we perform there. And we're giving guidance that we expect to improve on that next year.
It's the law of small numbers By the time we complete 'twenty two and we've got $2,000,000,000 of backlog. So we're well on the way
Let me before we get ESG, I'll just cut to the chase and go one step further. On a present value basis, it's hard pressed for me to find Before this quarter's report, but with your guidance, a value less than $150,000,000 and more reasonably above 200, Just based on different discount rates and pretty moderate assumptions for cash flow beyond the 3 years that we're looking at providing it holds up. So I mean, I get more like a $300 PV pretty easily based on just how you've transformed things in the last 5 years. I was out there for you guys 5 years ago. I think you had $2,500,000,000 in debt.
And you're looking like you're going to be closer to 1.25 net by year end, October, couple of months, right?
Yes, anyway, the ESG, great job, great job.
The ESG question, as people are investors are so concerned about ESG, he says, You guys can are you guys going to be talking in the future about any of your initiatives? And what would that look like, especially given your opportunity to
Truly something we're very focused on. It's on our agenda for the full Board to discuss. And I think You'll be seeing a lot of information about our ESG efforts in this year's proxy and soon
Perfect. I'll get back in the queue for a follow-up unless you want to just take it off the cuff right now.
You can take one more.
Go ahead. Okay. The follow-up was, given that you're kind of getting cleared for rental partnerships. And I know your assets are best suited as you're utilizing them currently. But given the high demand, finding someone like a BlackRock or a big investor to even backstop a refi at a Market rate, which we know is much lower on your debt as for interest, it seems like there's a creative possibility that you got To a JV that could refi or even eliminate debt for a multiyear partnership that would I'm talking something larger where they commit capital, which wouldn't stretch your balance sheet.
It seems like Lennar is interesting thing. Everyone seems to be moving on things and I guess you guys have 120 community that you're working on. But Just thinking outside the box, a question on financing and partnering.
No, I think maybe what you're touching on is, I mean, what we've been Doing historically, continued to do and perhaps will grow is land banking to where it takes Less and less of our capital, meaning that we can do more with the same capital And Gro, we've not really explored a joint venture that, at least that We've thought of any way that would transform our ability to refinance our debt structure at lower rates. But if there is someone interested in having that discussion with us, we'd love to have.
Sounds great, guys. Thanks. Keep executing. Incredible quarter and thanks for the guidance.
You bet. Thank you.
Thank you. This does conclude the question and answer session I'd like to hand the program back to Ara Hafnanian for any further remarks.
Thanks very much. And we're pleased with the quarter. We're amazed at what our team has been able to accomplish given all the Chaos and turmoil that COVID has created. We're proud of our results. We look forward to giving better results, and we'll look
This concludes our conference call for today. Thank you all for participating and have a nice day. All participants may now disconnect.