Greetings. Welcome to the Installed Building Products first quarter 2026 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone requires operator assistance during the conference, please press star- zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ryan Ricketts, Director of Investor Relations and Financial Planning and Analysis. You may begin.
Good morning, and welcome to Installed Building Products first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Earlier today, we issued a press release on our financial results for the 2026 first quarter, which can be found in the investor relations section of our website. On today's call, management's prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current beliefs and expectations and are subject to factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described today. Please refer to our SEC filings for cautionary statements and risk factors. We undertake no duty or obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information or future events, except as required by federal securities laws. In addition, management refers to certain non-GAAP and adjusted financial measures on this call.
You can find a reconciliation of such non-GAAP measures to the nearest GAAP equivalent in the company's earnings release and investor presentation, both of which are available in the investor relations section of our website. This morning's conference call is hosted by Jeffrey Edwards, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Miller, our Chief Financial Officer, and we are also joined by Jason R. Niswonger, our Chief Administrative and Sustainability Officer, and Brad Wheeler, our Chief Operating Officer. Jeff, I will now turn the call over to you.
Thanks, Ryan, and good morning to everyone joining us today. As usual, I will start the call with some highlights and then turn the call over to Michael, who will discuss our financial results in more detail before we take your questions. We delivered solid top-line results despite the impact of having many fewer working days at several branches due to extreme weather conditions, which resulted in a $20 million missed revenue opportunity, as we previously mentioned on our 2025 fourth quarter call in February. The macroeconomic backdrop also changed midway through the first quarter, partially due to geopolitical factors raising uncertainty for U.S. consumers and making new home sales more challenging. Service quality is a controllable factor that we continued to maintain at a high level for our customers during the quarter. Emphasizing product diversification and prudent expense management have continued to be key initiatives.
Our commercial end market continued to show strength, delivering double-digit installation sales growth with heavy commercial sales growth exceeding 20% during the quarter. Even with industry-specific headwinds expected to continue to affect our new residential installation segment in the near term, our overall business has been resilient. All the credit goes to the hardworking men and women across our more than 250 branches throughout the United States and those who support them from our office in Columbus, Ohio. To everyone at IBP, thank you for your hard work and dedication. Looking at our 2026 first quarter performance, consolidated sales decreased 4% and same branch sales declined 6%. Positive same branch commercial sales growth was more than offset by residential same branch sales growth headwinds within our installation segment.
With respect to our new single-family end market, activity has been slower than we had hoped by this point in the spring selling season, with some geographic markets feeling more upbeat than others. We continue to effectively manage both material and labor to meet the needs of our customers and remain flexible to adjust to the varying demand across regions. In our multifamily end market, both our contract backlog and partnership across branches to win business and deliver installed services continues to grow, which is encouraging. Our commercial end market remained a bright spot in the 2026 first quarter, with sales in our installation segment up 11% on a same branch basis from the prior year period. Our heavy commercial end market continued to be the dominant driver of same branch sales growth, which more than offset weakness in our light commercial end market.
Based on the growth in our heavy commercial contract backlogs, we believe heavy commercial sales and profitability are poised to remain healthy in 2026. During the 2026 first quarter, we completed a total of four acquisitions, representing approximately $28 million of annual sales from a diverse product set in both residential and commercial end markets. Acquisitions during the quarter included an installer of insulation across new residential and commercial end markets throughout Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, with annual sales of approximately $5 million. A provider of a wide range of value-added mechanical insulation services for diverse commercial and industrial applications, serving key commercial and industrial hubs across Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois, with annual sales of approximately $13 million. An installer of insulation primarily across new residential and light commercial markets throughout Kansas and Oklahoma, with annual sales of approximately $3 million.
An installer of waterproofing applications across new residential, multifamily, and commercial markets throughout Minnesota, with annual sales of approximately $7 million. Although deal timing is hard to predict, our current outlook for acquisition opportunities in 2026 is strong, and we expect to acquire at least $100 million of annual revenue this year. In terms of broader housing construction activity, U.S. Census Bureau data for the 2026 first quarter showed single-family starts decreased 6% from the prior year, while multifamily starts were up 21% for the same period. I'm proud of our team's continued success and commitment to doing an excellent job for our customers. Once again, to everyone at IBP, thank you. I remain encouraged by the fundamentals of our industry, our competitive positioning, and I'm optimistic about the prospects ahead for IBP in the broader insulation and complementary building products installation business.
Before I turn the call over to Michael, I wanna thank Darren for his contributions over the past five years as he pursues another opportunity, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors. Ryan Ricketts has been appointed Director of Investor Relations and Financial Planning. He has played an integral role in our financial planning and analysis function and is a natural fit to lead our investor relations efforts. I look forward to his contributions as we continue to execute on our strategy and engage with the investment community. With this overview, I'd like to turn the call over to Michael to provide more detail on our 2026 first quarter financial results.
Thank you, Jeff, good morning, everyone. Consolidated net revenue for the first quarter was down 4% to $661 million, compared- $685 million for the same period last year. Same branch sales for the installation segment were down 7% for the first quarter, as an 11% decline in new residential same branch sales was partially offset by an 11% increase in commercial same branch sales. Although the components behind our price mix and volume disclosures have several moving parts that are difficult to forecast and quantify, price mix was flat during the first quarter. However, when including heavy commercial, price mix increased 3%. Volume during the 2026 first quarter decreased by 10%, partially caused by adverse weather.
With respect to profit margins in the first quarter, our business achieved adjusted gross margin of 32.2% compared- 32.7% in the prior year period. This slight year-over-year decrease in margin during the quarter was driven by increased depreciation within cost of goods sold and higher vehicle insurance costs. Adjusted selling and administrative expenses were stable compared to the 2025 first quarter. As a percent of first quarter sales, adjusted selling and administrative expense was 20.9% compared- 20.1% in the prior year period. Administrative costs were impacted by higher medical and general liability insurance costs, which were 36% higher than prior year, as well as higher facility costs.
Adjusted EBITDA for the 2026 first quarter was $92 million, reflecting an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.9%, and adjusted net income was $48 million or $1.79 per diluted share. Although we do not provide comprehensive financial guidance, based on recent acquisitions, we expect second quarter and full- year 2026 amortization expense of approximately $10 million and $40 million, respectively. We would expect these estimates to change with any acquisitions we complete in future periods. Also, we continue to expect an effective tax rate of 25%-27% for the full- year ending December 31st, 2026. For the three- months ended March 31st, 2026, we generated $102 million in cash flow from operations, an 11% year-over-year increase.
Our first quarter net interest expense was $10 million, compared to $8 million for the 2025 first quarter, partially driven by a write-off of debt issuance costs. We would expect second quarter net interest expense of approximately $10 million. At March 31, 2026, we had a net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio of 1.2x compared- 1.17x at March 31, 2025, which remains well below our stated target of 2x . At March 31, 2026, we had $346 million in working capital, excluding cash and cash equivalents. Capital expenditures and total incurred finance leases for the three months ended March 31, 2026, were approximately $18 million combined, which was approximately 3% of revenue.
We ended the first quarter with $474 million in cash on the balance sheet. We will continue to prioritize acquisitions with long-term strategic benefits and attractive returns on invested capital. We expect positive free cash flow will continue to support shareholder returns and stock buybacks based on prevailing market conditions. During the 2026 first quarter, we repurchased approximately 91,000 shares of common stock at a total cost of $25 million. At March 31, 2026, the company had approximately $475 million available under a stock repurchase program, which expires March 1, 2027. IBP's Board of Directors approved the first quarter dividend of $0.39 per share, which is payable on June 30, 2026 to stockholders of record on June 15, 2026.
The second quarter dividend represents a more than 5% increase over the prior year period. We are committed to continuing to grow the company while returning excess capital to shareholders through our dividend policy and opportunistic share repurchases. With this overview, I will now turn the call back to Jeff for closing remarks.
Thanks, Michael. I'd like to conclude our prepared remarks by once again thanking IBP employees for their hard work and commitment to our company. Our success over the years is made possible because of you. Operator, let's open up the call for questions.
Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Sam Reid with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Awesome. Thanks so much, guys, for taking my questions. I wanted to see if you had an updated outlook on industry pricing. I know one of the OEMs put through a price increase on the resi side earlier this week. Just maybe your high-level thoughts on achievability on that price and ability to pass along to the builders, understanding full well that you over-index perhaps more to private custom builders versus some of the large publics.
Yes, this is Michael. Excuse me. Thanks for that question. As we've talked in the past, the time when the manufacturers are able to get traction in pricing, both us and them, quite frankly, is when the demand environment is strong and material is tight. That does not exist in the current operating environment. The, you know, production builders, particularly the entry-level market, continues to be weak and, you know, there's a ready supply of available material. You may know that one of the manufacturers is getting ready to bring back online a significant amount of capacity. We don't see there being any tightness in fiberglass material, certainly in the near term. The demand environment just is not there that would really support a price increase. Now, that's on the fiberglass side.
On the spray foam side, there have been two announced price increases that are approximately about a 25% price increase. We do believe that price increase will have traction and that the market will take a substantial percentage of that price increase. The spray foam manufacturers' factor costs have increased significantly, and as a consequence, they're really not making money at the current pricing. They need and will get that price increase. Spray foam, as pretty much everyone knows, is really a semi-custom, custom home product. The flexibility or willingness of, you know, the builders there and the homeowners there to accept a price increase on a spray foam application is pretty good.
I would say that within the contractor base, that is within the spray foam contractor base, there is a lot of discipline around price. We definitely think that we'll see that happen, and it will certainly benefit our price mix in the back half of the year. Just as context maybe, spray foam represents about 11% of our total sales. I would say on the spray foam side that there will probably be less incentive for, you know, certainly entry-level or even move-up buyers to switch to spray foam, and they'll stay with fiberglass. Again, as we talked before about the difference between spray foam and fiberglass, you know, an average spray foam job is sort of 2x an average fiberglass job.
That's not really a like for like comparison because your average spray foam house is going to be much larger on a square footage basis than a typical fiberglass job. Just to give you a relative sense of the difference between cost of spray foam and, you know, fiberglass. It definitely will have an impact on price mix for us in the back half of the year. As I said, we expect that the spray foam manufacturers will realize a significant percentage of that 25%.
Incredibly helpful color there. Maybe switching gears a little bit to industry capacity utilization. You know, you alluded to some capacity that's coming back online. You know, we have, however, seen, let's call it a little bit of better data on the start side.
Yes.
Realize a lot of this is probably on the production builder side, just curious your perspective on fiberglass industry capacity and where it sits today. Thanks.
This is Jeffrey. There's, you know, absolutely no tightness right now in terms of material flow, so I wouldn't anticipate it getting that way for at least some period of time.
Yeah. As we've said in previous calls, the manufacturers are doing an excellent job of, you know, managing their capacity. You know, we feel, you know, very good about the current environment and particularly with the additional plant coming online, because there is some signs, you know, of the market getting better. You know, production builder entry level is still weak, no doubt. The, you know, the public builders, I think, you know, have a relatively reasonably positive outlook for the rest of the year. We'll see if that materializes. You know, based on some of the recent information, both survey information that we've seen, Census Bureau information, which currently we're not putting a lot of confidence in, you know, we think that the year could end up being flat in terms of macro starts. We'll see.
You know, I would say that in April, we saw some very encouraging signs. You know, our private builder business was actually up in April. We've had continued weakness though, in the public builder market. Our sales with them are really tracking their sales, so you know, their home-building revenue in the most recent quarter was down, you know, low teens, and our revenue with them was down a little bit better than that. You know, we're tracking well with them. It's just that there's a lot of weakness there on the entry level.
Really appreciate the color, guys. Thanks so much.
Sure.
Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Kim with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate it. I guess first question would be related to the multifamily outlook. You know, you mentioned before that the backlogs were looking strong, and I think you got some easier comps here in the back half of the year. Are you still feeling pretty optimistic that you should be able to show strong year-over-year strength in multifamily? Is there anything that you saw in the March industry numbers in terms of multifamily starts? Does that kind of square with sort of the activity levels that you're seeing in your customer base?
Yeah. This is Michael. On the census information right now, we're just not putting a lot of confidence in those numbers. I would say we continue to be very encouraged on the multifamily side. Just to give you some sense, you know, the high-rise multifamily, which we do very little of, it's only, you know, it's less than 1% of revenue, it's about 5% of our multifamily revenue. In the quarter, that high-rise multifamily revenue was down almost 50%, okay? As you know from our disclosures, that total multifamily revenue was down in the quarter on the same branch basis only about 10%. What's interesting, the reason why I bring that up, is the high-rise multifamily backlogs actually turned mid-single digit positive in the quarter.
We feel encouraged that even that part of the market, which is admittedly a very weak part of the market, we're seeing some light at the end of that tunnel. In our, what I would consider traditional, so not high-rise multifamily, the backlogs continue to grow. We had a very good April within that sector and, you know, we feel good about what the back half of the year is gonna look like. I have to put in a caveat, though, that we have seen some projects getting slow walked, if you will, and that are slowing down. Even though we feel very confident about the strength of our backlog, you know, we don't have the ability to, you know, prevent, if you will, a GC from slowing down development of projects.
You know, depending upon how that develops through the rest of the year, that could put us in a position where, you know, the comps aren't positive. Overall, as we look at the multifamily business for us, it continues to be the same story where we're gaining share, profitably gaining share. Our team is doing an excellent job of, you know, going into new markets and gaining good profitable share in those markets. Even if we don't see a strong inflection in the back half of 2026, we feel very confident in what we're gonna see in 2027.
Gotcha. The second question, I guess, relates to data centers. It's kind of been a topic of conversation for a lot of folks. Can you give us a sense for, you know, are you relatively over or under indexed to data centers across your businesses? Is that something that is, you know, even sizable enough to really be worth calling out or not?
We do some of that work, but we are under indexed to it, I would say, given the activity that's happening right now. Our heavy commercial business, you know, as we noted, continues to perform at an extremely high level. Even though the comps have gotten, you know, more difficult because of the outperformance there, in the quarter, the heavy commercial business grew, like, 22%. They're doing a phenomenal job, and it is not data center driven. It's really across a lot of verticals and, you know, we can't say enough shout-outs about how what a great job that team is doing.
Gotcha. Okay, great. Thanks a lot, guys.
Sure.
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Rehaut with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone.
Morning.
I just, first question just on gross margins. I think it was kind of the big variance between my estimate and probably the streets as well and I would presume maybe weighing on the stock here today. I appreciate the color in terms of the year-over-year variance. I think you said higher depreciation, higher vehicle insurance. I was also kind of wondering around the sequential decline of about 280 basis points, which is, you know, much greater than we've seen in the last few years. In the last four years, I'm going back here, there was a 90 basis points, decline last year, but before that it was relatively flat.
I'm wondering just what the drivers were sequentially and if this is kind of a new bar to think about in terms of how we should progress throughout the year.
Yeah, Michael, this is Michael. You know, the gross margins did still come in within our 32%-34% range. Again, we look at that range on a full year basis, not in any one quarter. Really the decline, and I'll call out some specific items, but really it was the volume, right? When we lose volume, other cost of goods sold, not material, not labor, the team did an excellent job of managing material and labor. The other cost of goods sold number is, you know, semi-variable and not directly variable. When we have lower volume, as we did in the quarter, it just, it compresses to some extent, the gross margin. To give you just some context for the gross margin, this is year-over-year, not Q4 to Q1.
This is something that we haven't really talked about before, but I think it's worth highlighting. Our product margin. At the, you know, gross margin level before other cost of goods sold, the product margin was actually up 70 basis points from first quarter last year to first quarter this year. Unfortunately, it was offset by the mix from complementary products, which was a 20 basis point headwind to gross margin. The other distribution and manufacturing operations, which naturally have lower gross margins, were a 40 basis point headwind to gross margin. Then, which we called out in the prepared remarks, depreciation was a 30 basis point headwind to gross margin, and vehicle insurance was as well a 30 basis points headwind to gross margin. Somewhat offsetting that again, was the 70 basis point improvement in product margin.
Again, something we haven't really talked about before, the heavy commercial business, which was a 20 basis point improvement to gross margin. The other thing about gross margin, I think it's important for us to point out, you know, our obviously our vehicle costs are in gross margin, in other costs of goods sold. While fuel really did not impact significantly the first quarter, we would expect that to have an impact over the rest of the year of $15 million-$20 million in other costs of goods sold, assuming, you know, the current, particularly diesel cost, environment that we're under right now.
Okay. No, I appreciate all that detail, Michael. Just maybe to follow up on that, two kind of points. I guess one, it does sound like you're saying, at least on a year-over-year basis, I'm curious if on a sequential basis that the pricing dynamics between yourself and the builders haven't changed significantly. I think the concern out there is perhaps that the builders are really pushing back on vendors and suppliers and perhaps yourselves around price. So I'm just wondering if, number one, it sounds like what you're saying is that perhaps is not as big of a factor on a sequential basis. Maybe I'll just stop there, let you answer that before I ask another one.
Yeah. You know, where there is pricing pressure for sure is at the entry level, you know, home builder. You know, the public builders at that level. Just as a reference point, that represents about 14% of total revenue. I would say the team has done a very good job of maintaining market share and working hard to maintain margin. There's definitely some pressure there given the weakness that is experiencing there. Now, quite frankly, though, I think go forward, just based upon their guidance, what we're seeing, we believe a lot of that pressure is easing now and that the, you know, the difficulties that we were having with that again is starting to ease. We're seeing, you know, good pricing with the, you know, the private builders with particularly the custom, semi-custom builders.
That work continues to, you know, meet our expectations and as I mentioned earlier, you know, turn positive in April. We're feeling good from that perspective. Really the gross margin pressure, and actually the EBITDA margin pressure, and I'm sure someone will ask about administrative expenses, and we'll talk about that. It really was costs that are not directly variable that, you know, to some extent, we don't have a lot of control of. You know, for example, vehicle insurance, which is, you know, is up 25%. It's a significant number, particularly when you have flat to down sales environments.
Okay. In other words, because, you know, I'm just looking last year, you know, sales went down to about $65 million, and margin sequentially went down 90 basis points. Here you have sales down $90 million and margins went down 280 basis points. Is it really more of the, some of the cost inflation dynamics that you're seeing then the vehicle insurance, maybe the logistical costs, fuel costs, things of that nature that is more of the culprit on a sequential basis? Is that fair to say in addition to maybe some of the, you know, underabsorbed, fixed cost, broadly speaking?
Yes, broadly speaking. I mean, I will say because we've talked about this product margin, you know, during the call. I mean, the sequential product margin was down from the fourth quarter to the first quarter, but that's pretty typical, right? Part of that is just mix and, you know, again, there was some pricing pressure from the production builders. As I said, I think the team is doing an excellent job, excuse me, of, you know, managing that environment, you know, maintaining share and also working very hard to maintain price. Clearly, a lot of the decremental from the fourth quarter to the first quarter in the margin was in, you know, other costs of goods sold. You know, again, vehicles, the vehicle costs were the biggest culprit there.
Great. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
Sure.
Your next question comes from the line of Susan Maklari with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Morning, Susan.
Good morning. My first question is on the weather and the regional implications that that had in the quarter. Can you talk a bit about how those branches performed in the first quarter? Is there a backlog that you have that's coming into the second quarter, and is that part of what's driving that improvement that you're seeing with some of those private builders? How should we just think about your ability to make up some of that volume and what that'll mean for results in the upcoming quarters?
Yeah. This is Michael. I mean, we do think we'll make it up. The, you know, the biggest impact to the regions was primarily in the Mid-Atlantic. You know, those are some of our most profitable regions. Obviously, you never like to see weakness in your most profitable regions. We definitely think we'll make it back. It is definitely part of the reason why we think we're seeing, you know, while we're seeing positive comps in April with the, you know, private builders. Yes, I would say that we have the ability to make it up. I think it is gonna be a slow makeup, to be honest with you.
I mean, typically in these situations, we would make it up 30, 45 days, but, you know, it seems like it's just stretching out a little bit in terms of our ability, to get on top of that.
Okay. All right. That's helpful color. Turning to M&A, can you just talk a bit about the environment that you're seeing there? It seems like you're continuing to be fairly active for deals, but just give us an overall update on the pipeline and including the ability to perhaps do some more deals on that commercial industrial side.
This is Jeff, Susan. You know, I would say it's a healthy environment from in terms of an M&A, you know, backdrop. You know, we will continue to, you know, make the deals that like we've done historically. Pipeline's good and strong. We, you know, we did recently close a smaller, mechanical industrial installation business, and it continues to be an area of focus for us.
Okay. All right. Thanks for the color. Good luck with the quarter.
Thanks, Susan.
Your next question comes from the line of Philip Ng with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Michael, I appreciate you don't give guidance, but I think you were talking about how at least some of the survey work and what you're seeing out there, potentially single-family starts could be flat, and certainly we're not gonna hold you to it. From the context of, you know, single-family, your same branch sales business was down double- digits in 1Q, and it was a little softer in fourth quarter as well. Weather was a factor, at least April sounds okay for your private side. Give us a little context how you kinda see the shape of the year kinda shaking out, and how the activity kinda panned out to start 2Q.
I mean, on a, you know, consolidated basis for the install, so that includes the heavy commercial business. Organic growth, we were up, including acquisitions, but organic growth was down, you know, like 2%. What did help the organic growth, quite frankly, though, is price mix was up over 4%. Price mix was up excluding the heavy commercial business, but the heavy commercial business, just like it did in the first quarter, helped the price mix. Volumes were down, but they're down less than they have been over the past several months and over the past quarter. The volume weakness really is still coming from the entry-level production builders.
You know, if we think about the business right now, you know, the production builder business continues to be soft, but other parts of the business are starting to show resiliency, both from a volume perspective and a price mix perspective.
Okay. Okay, that's helpful. I mean, it sounds like volumes have firmed up a little bit versus 1Q. That's encouraging. I guess your largest competitor obviously is merging with a large distributor, roofing and LBM. Jeff, perhaps how do you kinda think about that impact, you know, your ability to compete, your go-to-market strategy and on the procurement front? I mean, from what I can tell, you guys buy super well already insulation. Does this kinda change how you think about the competitive landscape and perhaps your philosophy on the M&A side as well?
Well, I would say that we aren't anticipating any great changes. They've been a competitor, you know, all along, as long as we've been public and beforehand even, and we expect that to continue.
From an M&A perspective, you know, potentially, you know, this could be an upside in that they may not be quite as, you know, as interested in some of the install businesses based on their thrust more towards the, you know, the distribution end of things.
Okay. I'm just curious, in terms of your customers, builders, when you go to market and you negotiate, I believe it's all local, and that's how you bid it. Is there much overlap in terms of interaction for like a LBM guy versus a install guy for installation in terms of that go-to-market strategy? I'm just trying to gauge if that, you know, has any impact from a bundling standpoint as you compete with them more head-on from that standpoint.
No, we don't. No, because keep in mind that what we're providing is an install solution, so the material and the labor. On the distribution side, whether it's roofing or, you know, lumber or whatever, the distributor is drop shipping the material there, and then the builder is subcontracting out the labor to another contractor.
Okay. That's what I thought. Really helpful color. Thank you so much.
Sure.
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Dahl with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my questions. I wanna go back to gross margins. Again, appreciate you don't give the guidance, but when I think about the components that you laid out, you know, certainly seems like some things, to your point, would be kind of volume leverage that shift throughout the year. You've got kind of like insurance costs, the fuel costs that you mentioned, and then it seems like maybe at least in the near term, given the relative growth of complementary and other products, maybe some headwinds there. Think about that 32-34 range. Is there anything, like in those pieces, there do seem to be some incremental, certainly year-over-year headwinds relative to what you were seeing last year.
Anything you can do to help drill down a little more on within that range where we should be thinking about?
Yeah. To be honest with you, a lot is gonna depend upon, you know, where the production builders come out in terms of the year. If they get closer to, you know, looking at their guidance, basically, they're talking about home building revenue being down the rest of the year about 5%. You know, us being down, say, 5% with them, I think that puts, you know, less pressure, if you will, on gross margin. To your point, some of the headwinds that we experienced in gross margin in the first quarter are going to follow us throughout the year. You know, we still feel confident about the 32%-34%. There's, you know, there's a lot going on right now.
As we mentioned, you know, the spray foam price increase is more than likely to stick at a very high level. You know, gutters, which are about 6% of total revenue, you know, aluminum costs are up 20%. We don't see that subsiding anytime in the near future. There are definite headwinds to gross margin going forward. The team has done an incredible job, you know, being able to manage the price cost headwinds that we've experienced. We have, you know, complete confidence that they will continue to do that. I think that's evidenced by the fact that the product margin that we talked about earlier was up 70 basis points year-over-year. They're doing it. They're doing a great job, there are a lot of headwinds out there for sure.
On a full- year basis, we continue to be confident that we will fall in that 32%- 34% range.
Okay. Appreciate that. Then follow up just specifically on the fuel dynamic. Was it 15%- 20% just for the balance of the year? There's some run rate into 1Q. It doesn't sound like based on some of your other comments, you've implemented or contemplated surcharges, but any comments around pass-through mechanisms versus other internal actions you can do to help mitigate that?
Yeah. There's no doubt we will work hard to try and offset it. It's certainly something that is on top of mind for everybody in terms of the additional fuel costs. That $15 million-$20 million is for the rest of the year. You know, call it, you know, a little bit over $5 million per quarter that we would expect to, you know, feel the impact there. You know, we are getting fuel surcharges from some of the manufacturers, particularly the fiberglass manufacturers, you know, based on the additional transportation shipping costs. As a percentage of our overall cost structure, that's honestly fairly small. You know, again, we're gonna work very closely with our customers to make sure that our costs and our prices to them, you know, are aligned properly.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Sure.
Your next question comes from the line of Trey Grooms with Stephens Inc.
Good morning. You mentioned seeing some projects, you know, being delayed or slow-rolled in multifamily. Just curious, is that more, you know, kind of geographic specific? You know, if so, where are you seeing most of that? Is this these delays, you know, more widespread?
I wouldn't say it's necessarily geographic specific. I mean, it's really, it's project specific. It depends upon the specific project and the specific market. I wouldn't say that it's highly concentrated in one market over another.
You mentioned, you know, some of the pricing pressure around the entry level, which you know, you mentioned is 14% of your revenue. Are you seeing any more, you know, pricing pressure, if you will, you know, on the multifamily side of things now that you're, you know, we're starting to see a little, you know, more delays, more, you know, a little softer market there?
No, I would say that environment's been pretty stable, you know. I would say there's, you know, there was some pressure during the course of 2025, but I would say that it's very stable, especially as we start to inflect positively here from a, you know, units under construction. I think that, I mean, maybe not clearly, but, you know, we believe that multifamily basically is in balance in terms of cycle times. You know, obviously, with the exception of if things are getting slow roll, that might impact it a little bit. Then cycle times on single family are extremely well, probably the lowest they've been in 10 years or more, so.
Yep. Yep. Okay, thanks for that. The last one for me, we haven't talked too much about commercial, you know, seems to be doing very well. It's been a bright spot here for a while now. You know, with some of the shift in the macro, you know, that we're seeing, any signs of delays or, you know, similar kind of slow rolling or anything like that on the commercial side? Or is the backlog you have, you know, in place kinda suggesting you should continue to see this level of, you know, relative strength in commercial?
Yeah. I mean, other than the comps, continue to get more difficult as we go through the rest of the year, the team is doing an excellent job. I mean, the heavy commercial business was up, you know, over 20% in April. Even the light commercial business was up, you know, low double digits in April. You know, that business, as you know, is coming off a very easy comp. Don't read too much into that. Yeah, we feel very good about it. The team on the heavy commercial side has done a good job of even though they're putting up, you know, record revenue every quarter, they're actually continuing to grow their backlog. That's a very strong sign from our perspective.
Yep. Okay. Got it. That's it for me. Thank you all. Good luck.
Sure. Thanks, Trey Grooms.
Your next question comes from the line of Adam Baumgarten with Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Just maybe sticking with heavy commercial. Sounds like growth, pretty strong growth expected to continue. Should we think about the composition of that growth, maybe more volume than price? 'Cause it seems like price has been a big driver over the last year.
No, I think it'll continue to be price will continue to be a driver there. Obviously, you know, we'll say this probably a couple more times, is that, you know, the comps become increasingly more difficult for us, just given the outperformance that that business had experienced through 2025. We definitely think it's gonna be continue to be a price story as well. Part of that is because we're doing a much better job of selling multiple applications or products per job, right? In that instance, you know, kind of our average job, if you will, has a higher take per job, if I can use that terminology. You know, that's really helping that business from a pricing perspective.
Got it. That makes sense. Just looking at the kind of flattish price mix here. I know last quarter mix was pretty nicely positive, offsetting some modest price pressure. Can you maybe break apart how price and mix in the quarter trended?
I'm sorry. Say that last part again.
Just the split between price and mix, because I know last quarter mix was nicely positive, offsetting some modest price weakness. Maybe, you know, how that looked in the first quarter?
As you know, that price mix disclosure is, you know, kind of very difficult to break down just because, you know, most people's price disclosures are like for like, and there's really no such thing as kind of like for like from our perspective. I would say that the pricing pressure, as we've said earlier, really came from the production builders and that the, you know, on the residential side, you know, pricing for the privates and, you know, regional local builders was pretty solid. Again, when I say that, it's all about average job price, right? What you're seeing within the production builders, while on a per square foot installed basis, you know, there's not as much pricing pressure as you would expect.
If on average, they're building a smaller house, even though that doesn't impact us that much, it does have some impact on the price with the production builders, right? To the extent that they're trying to get their average ASP down, and one of the ways they're doing that is by building a considerably smaller house, that naturally, even if our per square foot installed price is the same, it's there's less square feet to install. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. Thanks. Appreciate it. Best of luck.
Your next question comes from the line of Ken Zener with Seaport Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody.
Good morning, Ken.
The stock price kind of reminds me of when you had the commercial heavy cost headwinds X years ago, and there seemed to be a disproportionate impact, you know, from investors' perspective. You were very clear last quarter, talking 32%-34%, right, is your gross margin range. The street with three quarters that had been above 34% was surprised today. Yet you talked about your product margin being up, you know, and these headwinds that seem to be persistent. Do you see the possibility of a sub 32% gross margin before we come out within your long-term range, given the uncertainty around fuel surcharges, which I don't know if you're able to recoup those from customers quickly. Could you just kind of talk about that range, given the surprise we had today? Thank you very much.
Yeah, Ken, this is Michael. I mean, you know, I have to firmly reiterate that we don't provide guidance. What I would say is that we continue to feel confident that on a full year basis, the gross margin will be between 32% and 34%. You know, the gross margin in the quarter was in that range, granted at the low end of that range.
Yep.
The first quarter is always at the low end of the range. You know, given the weakness that we saw in demand, again, the team did an excellent job of managing the costs that are directly variable. You know, the reality is that they can't control depreciation, they can't control, you know, vehicle insurance costs, and those things were major headwinds to gross margin in the quarter. You know, we haven't done it enough. You know, we have to just really, you know, give a shout-out to the team because they're continuing to perform in what is, you know, a difficult operating environment. Quite frankly, you know, we continue to believe that they will do that through the rest of the year, and as a result, the gross margin will be in that 32%-34% range.
Really appreciate how you broke down, right, depreciation, insurance, distribution, manufacturing, inputs. Would you expect that if we see some degree of normal seasonality to 2Q from 1Q, that these elements would be accretive to margins then? I mean, as you pick up, right, you obviously just fell sequentially in sales, and it's expected you're going to rise. Would you get volume leverage essentially from net sales gains? Is that a logical conclusion given you're positive on your product margin and your heavy commercial margins?
Historically, yes. Our margins improve, you know, as we go into the seasonally stronger quarters, and the first quarter is seasonally always our weakest quarter from a volume perspective. As a consequence, the other cost of goods sold, you know, particularly vehicle expenses, hurt gross margins. You know, again, I would say that we expect full year gross margins to be in that 32%-34% range. We do believe even though there are considerable headwinds for things that we've talked about that will continue, we would expect to see a typical seasonal gain as we go throughout the course of the year on a quarterly basis.
Appreciate that. If I could get one last question. Well, with TopBuild apparently going away, QXO, you know, not doing conference calls, you're the big provider of a good understanding of new home sales, given your good market share. Why is it that your confidence in the Census data is so bad? I mean, the publics don't respond to the Census and, you know, and they dominate the Southeast, obviously. That's one reason. Is there something more structural about the data that you see undermined, or is it actually just, you know, more regional distortion that you're seeing? The Midwest makes sense, the Southeast doesn't. Could you expand on that given that we obviously have, we investors, look at that information historically, and you're saying it's not good. Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, maybe I shouldn't have been so harsh, but, you know, I think on a month-to-month basis, we all know that that information gets heavily revised. Particularly when you saw the numbers in multifamily with the wide delta, I mean, that's not practical. It just doesn't make sense that something like that would happen. You have to have less confidence in the actual numbers. Now, on a full- year basis or on a trailing LTM basis, is that data worthwhile, particularly the permit data? Yes, absolutely. Excuse me. We just, obviously we don't run our business based on what the U.S. Census Bureau reports. You know, we continue to again see good strength, you know, moderate strength, I guess I should say, within the private builders.
We feel good about, you know, where the multifamily business is doing and what it's doing, what the heavy commercial business is doing. You know, even though we continue to see weakness with the production builders, you know, the publics have, you know, noticeably increased their community counts and, you know, there's reason to feel encouraged about the back half of the year, particularly based on some of their comments, not just publicly, but to our salespeople and field people. We haven't seen a strong inflection there yet.
It also sounds like you're saying the entry level is where the pressure is not at the move up or higher end custom as well, correct?
A 100%.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Our last question comes from the line of Collin Verron with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Morning, thanks for taking my question. You gave a lot of helpful color on the gross margin. I just wanted to clarify. Were any of the headwinds that you saw in the first quarter one time in nature, or do you expect to see any of the impacts from maybe mix reversing?
No, to be honest with you. I mean, I think that the growth in the complementary products or when the complementary products are at a better sales rate, if you will, than insulation, and when we say insulation, we mean fiberglass and spray foam. It definitely weighs on gross margin. The distribution and manufacturing business, which as I mentioned previously, was, you know, was a 40 basis points headwind to gross margin. It's good for EBITDA margins, but from a gross margin perspective, it definitely structurally is just the way that business is, does weigh on gross margins. That business is performing. You know, it's relatively small, but it's performing extremely well, and we expect it to continue to perform well.
Again, on the gross margin side, you know, we feel confident about the 32%-34% range on a full- year basis. I did want to get in just a couple of quick notes on the administrative side because I think it's important. I understand why everybody's focusing in on the gross margin. You know, in the quarter, medical insurance was up almost 40%, which was a 50 basis point headwind to overall margin. Facility costs were up 12%, which is about a 40 basis point headwind to overall margins. Liability insurance was up 35% in the quarter, which was a 40 basis points headwind in the quarter to margin. Again, all of these costs that we've called out are not directly controllable.
I mean, they are over time, and believe me, we're working on managing those expenses. When you're in, you know, a flat to down in volume environment, it's hard to offset some of these costs that are going to increase, you know, just because of the nature of the market pricing for those costs. Now, it's our job and our team's job to work hard to offset those costs, to align our costs with our selling price and our customer mix. You know, everyone in the company is highly incented on profitability, and the team is working tirelessly to make sure that we're able to do that.
Great. That's really helpful color, and you stole my second question. I guess I'll just ask about your comment about the slower, it just being slower to make up for the weather. I guess that was a little surprising just because it feels like there'd probably be capacity in the market given the slower demand and then the builder cycle times being low. I guess if you could just kind of expand on that, what's driving sort of your slower ability to make up for that weather headwind?
I think it was just generally speaking slower to come back than it normally is. I mean, it could be builders just slowing down a bit. I would say, you know, with the private builders, we were encouraged with what we saw in April, and we're encouraged with the dialogue, really across the footprint.
Great. I appreciate all the color.
Sure.
This now concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back to Jeffrey Edwards for closing comments.
I wanna thank all of you for your questions, and I look forward to our next quarterly call. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.