Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Legacy Housing Corporation fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automatic message advising your hand is raised. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to your speaker host, Mr. Duncan Bates, President, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone. This is Duncan Bates, Legacy's President and CEO. Thanks for joining our call today. Max Africk, Legacy's new General Counsel, will read the Safe Harbor disclosure before getting started. Max.
Thanks, Duncan. Before we begin, may I remind our listeners that management's prepared remarks today will contain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties, and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. The company claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements that is contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from management's current expectations. We refer you to a more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties in the company's annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any projections as to the company's future performance represent management's estimates as of today's call. Legacy Housing assumes no obligation to update these projections in the future unless otherwise required by applicable law.
Thanks, Max. We're happy to have you on the team. I'll run through our prepared remarks on Legacy's 2022 financial performance and provide additional corporate updates. We will open the call for Q&A. 2022 was a record year for Legacy Housing. Net revenue increased to $257 million in 2022, representing a 30.1% improvement over 2021. The increase resulted from several price increases implemented from 2021 to 2022, the conversion of certain independent dealer consignment arrangements to financing arrangements, offset by a decrease in shipments from our Eatonton, Georgia facility. As we discussed on the third quarter call, we delayed shipments and slowed production to improve the quality and consistency of homes manufactured at our plant in Eatonton, Georgia.
During the fourth quarter, we right-sized the workforce, brought in a third party to retrain the team in certain manufacturing stations, and significantly improved quality. We are making progress without sacrificing quality. Interest revenue from the company's retail and commercial loan portfolios was $28.6 million for 2022, up 5% from 2021. The increase resulted from higher retail loan balances offset by lower commercial or MHP balances. Both the commercial and retail loan portfolios continue to perform well. Income from operations for 2022 was $78 million, an increase of 32.4% from 2021. This increase was primarily driven by price increases, the conversion of independent dealers from consignment to financing arrangements, and an increase in other revenue offset by lower volume from Georgia, higher material and labor costs, and higher SG&A.
We continue to hold pricing and reduce our raw material inventory. We are also looking at ways to reduce SG&A. Up this year due to salaries and incentive compensation, warranty costs, and professional fees. Net income of $67.8 million for 2022 was a 35.9% increase over 2021. Basic earnings per share grew to $2.78 in 2022, an increase of 35% from 2021. Legacy delivered a 19.6% return on equity over the last 12 months. For this calculation, I'm using the average 2022 shareholders' equity value. At the end of 2022, Legacy's book value per basic share outstanding was $15.69, an increase of 22.7% from 2021.
We ended the year in a cash neutral position with $2.8 million in cash and $22.5 million drawn on our credit line. During the fourth quarter, we put $8.4 million of excess cash to work in treasuries, yielding approximately 4.7%. Our backlog is healthy across all manufacturing facilities. We have a small manufacturing footprint and continue to run near capacity. As the market slows, we anticipate having orders to fill our three plants. I'm really excited for the next 18 to 24 months at Legacy. We've moved past the financial reporting issues, and the foundation is stable. Looking at the 2022 balance sheet, we have essentially no debt and over $330 million of principal outstanding across our loan portfolios.
These loan portfolios generate a tremendous amount of predictable cash flow that we can reinvest at high rates of return to grow our book value. As the economy slows, we're seeing more and more opportunities to deploy capital. We are constantly evaluating these opportunities and will remain disciplined in our approach. Overall, we're focused on long-term capital appreciation and think that over the next 6 to 18 months is a pretty opportunistic time to put money to work. Operator, this concludes our prepared remarks. Please begin the Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question coming from the line of Min Cho with B. Riley your line is open.
Great. Hi, Duncan. Congratulations on a really strong quarter here and strong year.
Hey, good morning. Thank you very much.
Sure. A couple of questions . Regarding your Georgia facility improvement, it sounds like the shipments have definitely improved in the fourth quarter. Can you talk a little bit about what the utilization rate was as you exited the year? Can you remind us what the historical kind of annual revenue is from that facility?
Yeah, sure. A couple thoughts. You know, first, as far as where we are with, you know, with production, you know, that plant historically has produced, say, five to six homes a day. We're still below where we'd like to be, but we're very cautious around, you know, around ramping up production until we're 100% positive that we're not gonna have any quality issues going forward. Right now we're building three to four at that plant, so it's not, you know, significantly below the long-term average, but it has been a work in progress to get up to the historical production level. You know, we don't publish revenue by manufacturing facility, but, you know, you could take, you know, production volume and just kinda use an average average home price there.
Okay. Definitely do that. Also, it looks like the number of home sections that were produced and shipped were either at a record or near record highs for the fourth quarter and for the full year. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that with respect to labor availability. Given the current labor situation, do you expect that number to increase through 2023?
You know, labor continues to be a problem for us, I think a lot of other, you know, companies in the U.S. manufacturing space. That said, it's not as tight as it was. You know, we use just a very simple barometer of the labor market is when we walk into our Fort Worth plant in the morning, are there people, you know, who are waiting in the lobby for jobs? I think through COVID, we didn't have anybody in the lobby and, you know, we're starting to see people who are, who are ready to work. You know, labor does continue to be our constraint from a manufacturing standpoint. You know, I think it is, I think it is loosening up and, you know, we'd like to continue to push production at all of these plants, that really is the constraint.
Okay. My final question has to do with your mobile home parks. Just any update on the development in Texas? I know you were pretty close to kind of starting construction on the Del Valle units. Any updates there?
Yeah. You know, the developments continue to move forward. Frankly, they're slower than we would like. I mean, we've just been tied up and bogged down with so much work, you know, on the administrative front. You know, that said, we're getting toward a point where at least for phase I, you know, we can start to think about, you know, getting homes into that phase I . You know, we're still months out there and, you know, that's the first one that we'll have come online, but we've got several others behind it. It's unfortunately slower than we would like, you know, I think a lot of the other industry peers will talk about some of the just regulatory hoops that you have to jump through to actually get one of these turnkey and it's significant.
Making progress slower, but I think now that we're through, you know, some of the financial reporting issues, we're really, we're gonna make a push there.
All right. It's understandable. Great. good luck to you in 2023.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Mark Smith with Lake Street Capital. Your line is open.
Hi, guys. First question for me, just wanted to look at the finance business just a little bit. Correct me if I'm wrong, it looks like you might not be keeping up with kind of the rising rate environment. You know, can you talk about, you know, if you guys are using the finance business really as a lever to kind of drive product sales?
Sure. You know, Mark, the nice thing about our finance business is it throws off so much cash that we're not borrowing to lend, you know? If we had a, you know, warehouse facility and we were borrowing and the rate on that went up pretty dramatically, we would be in a much different situation than we are today. Our strategy over the last year or so has been, you know, to keep our rates down and to keep our prices up. You know, certainly the financing programs at Legacy, you know, help drive sales for the business.
Okay. Perfect. Then just looking at if production looked really solid, you know, from unit sales this quarter. Can you just talk about kind of where the production was versus kind of, you know, inventory you had a little bit more at the end of Q3, you know. Just kind of weighing, you know, what you were able to move through from an inventory standpoint versus kind of production here during Q4.
Yeah. I mean, you know, we had talked about, I think on the last call, especially in Georgia, you know, we had an issue where we had a lot of homes that were stuck in the yard, and we weren't able to ship. During the fourth quarter, we were able to work through a lot of those. That certainly helped us. You know, we are constrained, from a manufacturing standpoint. You know, that said, I think heading into a slowdown, you know, I'd much rather have three plants that I'm trying to feed than 40. I think, you know, overall, we're pretty well positioned going forward.
Okay. That's kind of my next question, was just, you know, how you feel about, you know, manufacturing today. You know, do you have the labor, materials, the things that you want to continue as we look at Q1, you know, and into 2023 to be able to kind of produce at the levels that you'd like?
Yeah. I think from, you know, we'd always like an abundance of skilled labor, but I think, you know, what the teams that we have now are doing a good job. You know, from a material standpoint, you know, the supply chains have really loosened up. You know, one of the challenges that we've been working through is, you know, you went through two years where your purchasing department, you know, did everything that they possibly could to get materials. Now that, you know, materials are abundantly available and prices are coming down, you know, we're really working to try to get the biggest discounts that we can, but you know, we're not having, we're not having any of the issues that we had during COVID or, you know, with appliances and other things not being readily available.
Okay. The last question for me, kind of big picture, you know, just you guys give some great data in your 10-K on kind of the industry and affordable housing, but any other insights you can give on, you know, kind of what you're seeing from a demand perspective, you know, especially with kind of a squeezed consumer out here, you know, are you continuing to see improved demand for affordable housing?
You know, Mark, it's a really interesting time right now, right? You've got stick-built home prices, you know, near all-time highs. Rates obviously moved up very quickly, underwriting standards have tightened. You know, I mean, if you look at some of those stats around, you know, average stick-built home price across the country, I mean, it's a pretty big number. When you think about our product, right, it's significantly less expensive. I think, you know, from a demand standpoint, we have two channels of our business. We either sell, you know, through to a retail customer through independent dealers or through our company-owned dealerships, or we sell to manufactured housing community owners.
You know, I'd say on the dealer side, you know, dealers do have a lot of inventory right now, and the demand is slower from the dealer channel. You know, I think since like over the last probably three to six months, traffic at those dealerships has picked up, but the conversions to home sales are not as high as we'd like to see them. On the community side, you know, there's just a lot of capital that came into the space. We continue to see pretty good demand from, you know, a lot of our large historical customers that are, you know, either developing new communities or, you know, doing some infill or expansion. You know, the overall, you know, I think demand is certainly slowing.
That said, you know, we feel pretty good with three plants about, you know, being able to have the orders to keep these things, you know, going at say similar production capacity.
Excellent. Thank you.
Sure. Thanks, Mark.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one. Our next question coming from the line of Tim Moore from EF Hutton Group. Your line is open.
Thanks. Congratulations on the very strong sales quarter beat in December and for the year. Very impressive margin expansion. I know the team's working and putting in a lot of hours. Duncan, I was just wondering, you know, you briefly mentioned the backlog. What is the current backlog, you think, in terms of visibility on monthly sales? Is it something like five months going out, maybe?
You know, Tim, we don't publish a backlog. You know, we do have several months of backlog. I think, you know, one of the, one of the challenges going forward is, you know, having customers actually accept their orders. Even though you've got backlog, you know, we're pushing people who've ordered homes to get them scheduled and, you know, take the homes when they come offline. You know, again, small manufacturing footprint, even if things slow down, you know, I think we'll be able to, you know, to continue to cut deals, you know, where we're selling 20, 30 or, you know, 100, 200 homes at a time and, you know, keep these facilities close to capacity.
That's helpful to hear. You know, how should we think maybe about the gross margin possibility for this year? I saw that looked like the fourth quarter gross margin was 40%. Should we kind of go off of that? Just kind of thinking about modeling going forward, you know, if your prices have held up pretty well. Just trying to get a sense of maybe what you're thinking from utilization and the margin profile for the year.
You know, it's tough to say. I think there's a lot of dynamics that are in play right now. You know, we have been able to hold prices firm and, you know, we have, I think, started to benefit from material prices coming down. You know, that said, if demand really does slow down, you know, we'll have to think hard about, you know, pricing. Certainly, you know, we're trying to buy materials for as cheap as we possibly can and, you know, we're trying to hold pricing firm. I think I'll have a better view kind of by, you know, end of, end of next quarter when we talk about that. I'd say, you know, for now it's about the same.
Good. Good. No, that's helpful to hear. You know, you mentioned, which I think we're all aware of, but the, you know, the independent dealer channels had some destocking going on and, you know, we've seen the walk-in traffic, you know, fall, I guess, the last few months just in general for the industry. How's the walk-in traffic holding up at your company-owned retail locations? Are you guys doing anything to maybe create more digital leads or digital generations to kind of get more consumers in your stores?
Yeah, a couple thoughts on that. I mean, you know, Kenny and I spend a lot of time talking about foot traffic and conversions at the retail stores. You know, we have seen an uptick in foot traffic. Really, you know, the issue is on the converting that foot traffic to sales. I don't think it's something, you know, that's necessarily unique to our retail stores as it is, you know, across the industry where, you know, given the price of our product, people are interested in it. You know, they, I think a lot of people are hesitant to pull the trigger right now given so much uncertainty in the overall economy. You know, foot traffic has picked up. We're working on things to convert more of the traffic to sales.
You know, historically, we have not had a big, you know, online presence. I think we've certainly, on the Heritage side, ramped that up with, you know, an additional hire who's working on marketing for Heritage. I think, you know, again, now that we're through a lot of the financial reporting issues, you know, I'm looking forward to, in addition to growth, you know, really focusing on, you know, how we can improve the business. You know, from a marketing standpoint, we think that there's a pretty good opportunity there. It's just, you know, having the bandwidth to actually work with our team and get it done.
That's helpful color. I appreciate that. You know, another question I had was, I'm just wondering, you're doing a good job on getting the quality assurance back on track with the Georgia plant. Have you and, you know, the board thought about maybe adding a head of operations to maybe visit all three plants every couple of weeks to just ensure the efficiency is in quality control?
You know, not at this time. We do have really good, you know, general managers at all of these plants. As you know, you know, me, Kurt, and Kenny are all heavily involved, this thing moves pretty quickly. We're not scheduling a lot of meetings. It's a lot of direct phone calls. You know, we can make changes quickly. You know, we do operate in a very highly regulated industry, you know, there's a code that we strictly build to. It's just, you know, given some of the labor challenges and turnover, sometimes you have issues there, like we had in Georgia. I feel good about, you know, where the team is now.
We've had a lot of people step up. I think, you know, if we can continue to grow and especially expand the manufacturing footprint, then, you know, maybe at that time, a hire, you know, like that or an internal person moving into that role may make sense. I think for the three plants right now, we feel pretty good about the management team that we have in place.
Yeah, that makes sense. I remember and enjoyed meeting Marco at your Fort Worth plant in late August. I was very impressed by him. Just maybe switching gears. Duncan, now that you've been there nine months, and we're up to speed on the accounting enhancements and the Georgia facility coming along with the quality insurance, are you now getting any more time to look for acquisition targets?
We're getting there. You know, one of the founders, Kenny Shipley, always says that the best deals come to you. I think what's been interesting over the last, really over the last month, maybe month and a half is, you know, as other manufacturers slow down, and financing in certain areas of our business becomes less attainable, I mean, we are really seeing a lot more opportunities than we have in years. You know, the key is, you know, when we're allocating capital, we're very return-focused. You know, we're focused on the bottom line and growing book value and continuing to reinvest our money at attractive rates of return. If you look at the returns on the loan portfolio, they're pretty significant.
You know, as we look at opportunities, there's a high bar there. We've got to make sure that, you know, we're meeting and exceeding those return, you know, thresholds to actually deploy capital outside of the loan portfolios. You know, long way of saying, we're seeing more opportunities, we're spending more time on them. You know, we think that over the next 12 months is a pretty interesting time to put money to work because we are long-term focused.
Great. That's really helpful, color and clarification on the capital allocation strategy. That's it for my questions. Thanks a lot.
Yep. Thanks, Tim.
Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of DeForest Hinman. Your line is open.
Hey, thanks for taking the questions. A couple of things. Can you just give us a update on the strategy for the owned, manufactured housing parks? In the 10-K, we can see, I think two of the larger parks, the acreage owned actually decreased. I don't know if that's, you know, we're developing the pads and we're selling the pads or we're developing the pads, putting units on it and then selling them. I believe in the past there was some discussion about, you know, operating these, parks and generating a rental stream. You know, it's even laid out where, you know, we can see the dollar amount of leased homes is actually, I think, declined from some previous levels.
Can you just give us an update on, you know, what exactly is the strategy with the park development?
Yeah, happy to. You know, there are a few questions in there. I'll try to take them and if I miss something just remind me. You know, first on the acreage change, I don't know. I'll have to follow up with you on why the acreage would change. We haven't purchased any additional land since last quarter, and we also haven't sold any additional land or any land since last quarter. I'll have to follow up with you on why the acreage changed. You know, overall, we, you know, we do think that potentially owning and operating these communities could be a good, you know, long-term, or could provide long-term consistent cash flows.
That said, the development of them has, you know, has taken longer than expected. I mentioned earlier that, you know, the regulatory hurdles that you have to jump through and the time that these regulators take to make decisions is, you know, it's really, it's mind-boggling. For the past couple of years, we've had enough orders where, you know, to external customers, you know, where we haven't needed to, even if the communities were ready, we haven't needed to put homes on them because we were at capacity and selling to other customers. I think ultimately, you know, the communities provide us with a lot of optionality. There's a lot of value to unlock there.
You know, one thing that's kind of top of our agenda as we move into, you know, the middle part of the year is, you know, we've got the properties. They're at various stages of development. You know, there's some that it probably makes sense for us to push through and finish. There's others, and we've been approached by a lot of the larger community developers that may make sense to partner on and potentially be able to sell homes into and still retain some type of, you know, of cash flow. There's some that, you know, that we haven't made much progress on developing, that there may be another buyer that's more suitable to combine this with additional land and to build bigger communities.
I think overall, we're still, you know, we're still making progress. The, you know, the strategy we're diving into now on exactly what we wanna do with each location. We're in these things for the right, you know, we bought the land right. We've been very frugal with how we've, you know, allocated capital to these projects. You know, there is value to unlock here. It's just figuring out what the right path forward is.
Okay, that's helpful. I would just clarify. My question on the acreage was, I guess, from 10-K this year to 10-K last year, Bastrop County, Texas acres was down, 32 acres, and Bexar County was down, like, 31. I didn't know if that was, you know, we completed development, we placed units, someone approached us, and we sold it. Is that what happened?
No, I need to check on it. I don't know why it would've changed.
Okay.
That's the one where we really have made, the most progress on. We've got phase one coming, but I don't, I don't know why it would've changed.
Okay. Then you mentioned some of the large community developers. You have mentioned that, you know, you're running at pretty high levels of capacity, but, you know, you might see some moderation. Given our position and our outlook, is there any sense in approaching some of those larger developers and saying, you know, "Look, we can allocate a certain percentage of our, you know, monthly, weekly, quarterly production to your to you as a single customer," and, you know, then they can have a more consistent supply of units because a lot of things I've read makes it sound like there's, you know, lots of demand on the park side, and, you know, they're coming to market with a rental rate. In many areas, it's very attractively priced versus the competition.
Sure. You know, we think we build a great park model home. You know, we buy materials and import materials and manufacture our own components that allows us to build these things for a, you know, a great price and, you know, sell them at a great price, even with a little bit of margin there. You know, we have had several conversations with some of our larger customers about taking homes in quantity, you know, under, say, some type of supply agreement where we allocate a certain amount of production a month to, you know, to them at an agreed upon price. Yes, all those conversations are happening.
We've got a great park sales team, and, you know, there are certainly customers that, or there are certainly, you know, developers that are focused on our core markets that we, you know, have not historically sold to. I've been involved in a lot of those meetings and certainly we're trying to advance those. You know, if we can build the same home, you know, in large runs, I mean, that's certainly more efficient for us than throwing a bunch of double wides in a line and that, you know, that slows us down just 'cause they're more intricate. Yes, that is top focus for a lot of people at the company.
Okay, thank you. Then my last question is just on, any update on how we're looking at the shared purchase authorization from a capital allocation perspective. It looks like there's a lot of opportunities that you've touched on. I believe it's a $10 million authorization. I mean, is that more, you know, opportunistic dry powder? And to some extent, maybe we were locked out of actually, you know, doing anything in the market as we're working on, you know, getting some of the administrative things addressed that you touched on. You know, just give us some color there and, you know, would that be, you know, something that could be utilized in, 2023? Thank you.
Sure. Yeah, you know, it's, it's certainly not just optics. I mean, that was something that, when our last share repurchase program expired, I was pretty adamant about getting back in place. You know, we do trade at, I think, a pretty cheap valuation, you know, right now. The way that I personally think about that share repurchase program, you know, every one of these calls, you know, we give our tangible book value per share. We think our book value is extremely, you know, conservative. I mean, the way that this business was built, it was started with, you know, $7 million, and all the profits have been reinvested every single year for 18 years at a 10%-20% return.
You know, so we do have real assets that are unencumbered. I think, you know, if depending on how the, you know, the stock market trades through the remainder of the year, you know, as we approach that book value per share number, you know, that may be, you know, deploying capital or repurchasing shares may be our greatest return opportunity from a capital allocation standpoint if we start trading down near that tangible book value per share number.
Okay. Thank you for the color. I agree the shares seem to be undervalued. Thank you.
Thank you. Appreciate the questions.
Thank you. [inaudible] we have a follow-up question from Min Cho with B. Riley. Your line is open.
Great. Thank you for the follow-up. Real quick, you know, I noticed that the ASP per home section was up in the fourth quarter during the third quarter. Just wanted to know if this was a function of mix or if you could explain that difference. Just any thoughts on ASP going forward, I'm assuming for 2023, you know, kind of flat to down, but any details would be great.
Sure. You know, we've had I think 17 price increases through COVID but we have not raised prices since, you know, kind of midyear 2022. I think that, you know, that's a function of, you know, the price increases being fully implemented. Certainly we'd like to hold prices. There's others other manufacturers that we're seeing that have decreased prices. you know, look, we'd love to continue at this level, but we'll see ultimately what happens over the next couple quarters from a demand standpoint.
Right. Just also, in terms of your automation opportunities, can you talk to, you know, how much of your plant is currently automated, if any, and what your opportunities are if this is something that you're going to focus on going forward?
Sure. You know, it's something that we talk about, regularly. I know if you look overseas, where there's, I'd say, expanded, you know, code. You know, we manufacture to a very strict code. There's oversea operations in countries where they have a, I'd say, more broad code, and they are highly automated. You know, our product is very manual right now, and there's really not much automation. Part of that is, you know, we don't have plants that are dedicated to building the same product, you know, over and over and over again. We'll build, you know, we'll stack production with, you know, with orders as they come in. So, you know, I think there probably are some automation opportunities.
There's also, I think, opportunities to, you know, get down into, you know, regions that have cheaper, you know, labor rates. You know, I thought the Solitaire deal with Cavco is pretty interesting, where, you know, that's the only HUD code manufacturer in Mexico. That's certainly something that we had our eye on. I would see us going in that direction, you know, before we build a really state-of-the-art, like, you know, highly automated manufacturing plant.
Understood. Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Brian Glenn with Olcott Partners. Your line is open.
Hey, welcome, Max.
Thank you.
Hey, Duncan. Yeah. Hey, Duncan.
Hey.
Nice job, guys. Nice job, Ron. Yeah, it's great to see you guys working hard and getting some results. I had a quick question about in the 10-K, there was a contingent repurchase agreement noted. It looks like that number has gone up from, it was like $100,000, then $4 million, then $8 million. I know it's noted as immaterial. It's still immaterial. It looks like, is that strategic on your side to try to get more floor space as I know it's related to floor plan financing by a third party, or is that just the way the market's gone where you have to put that agreement in place?
The way that agreement works is, say we have an independent dealer that we sell homes to, you know, that uses, say, Twenty First for their floor planning. You know, since we are the manufacturer, we'll have an agreement with, say, Twenty First, you know, to repurchase homes in certain circumstances. You know, I need to look at the movement in that as well. I can follow up. I think a big component of it is, you know, or two components of it. One, you know, dealers do have a lot of inventory right now, and it's not moving as quickly as I think they would like. The second is, you know, just home prices are up pretty significantly. Both of those are driving that number.
Why it went from a few hundred thousand to several, you know, several million, I can follow up with you on. It may be that, you know, we have seen other, you know, companies that finance, you know, get really aggressive on terms. You know, since we hold everything on our balance sheet, we're pretty conservative about what we will finance and what we won't finance. I really, that may be the, say, the third, the third reason. You know, increased home prices, more inventory on dealer lots, and then just, you know, other finance companies being, you know, more conservative, so they're getting a larger piece of the business on the consignment side.
Sure. Okay. That's helpful. I would suspect it actually benefits you guys and larger operators more so than smaller ones because it gives you a chance just to use your balance sheet to handle that contingency.
That's right.
Yeah. My second question, I know someone asked this, you jumped into it a little bit. If we without talking about specific competitors, but if we grab some of your peers, which are publicly traded, so I know it's only a slice of the market. If you just do, you can do the math any way you want, but if you jump into just their manufactured housing, try to come up with a cost of goods sold per home. Sure, that includes depreciation. Maybe for them, it includes depreciation on underutilized or underutilized facilities or facilities not running at full capacity. Regardless, the number's big. It's a substantial number in terms of what you guys can produce a home for. There's also an assumption in there about double versus single, if they disclose that breakdown or not.
Either, any way you slice it's a big number. That gap is really just you guys insourcing and being more vertically integrated. I think probably a little bit finished product too, just being a slightly dialed down, still a high quality product. Can you elaborate on that?
Yeah. I'll try to give you some additional thoughts there. You know, we do pride ourselves on being vertically integrated and, you know, trying to buy materials and source materials from overseas and, you know, build our own components. I certainly think that's an advantage. You know, another advantage is, look, we've got two founders that probably have more invested, at least on the manufacturing side of this industry than anybody else in the country, and they've both been in it for, you know, over 40 years. You know, a lot of thought and time and effort has gone into, you know, how do you build a great floor plan and a nice house that's gonna last efficiently.
I think, you know, we may do a better job, you know, as far as like using the right materials in the right places. I think the biggest component that you hit, and this is something that I wanna make clear on this call, is, you know, I don't have to feed 30 or 40 plants. You know, I've got three plants and, you know, we know that they're profitable even at lower production levels. You know, historically, a lot of these plants with the right labor have, you know, done more, significantly more in production than what we're currently doing. We'd love to ramp that up, and I think there's additional margin there, but it's really hard in today's labor environment.
you know, as the market slows and people, you know, idle plants and don't have orders and, you know, companies, smaller businesses, you know, shut down, you really you can't get small fast enough. I think that some of the larger competitors, you know, could really struggle there, where you've got, you know, 40 plants and there's more fixed costs than people realize. In a, in a tight labor environment, you know, you're moving pretty slow to get rid of your, you know, your core team because it may be, you know, next to impossible to hire all those people back. I think that, you know, just having a large manufacturing footprint, is could be pretty difficult in a down cycle.
I see. Thanks. That's helpful. Great work. Again, welcome Max, and great work to you and Max and Ron and Curt and Kenny.
Thanks. We really appreciate it.
Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Duncan Bates for any closing remarks.
Perfect. Thank you. Just two final comments. First, I wanna thank everybody who joined today's call. You know, we really appreciate your interest in Legacy, and feel free to reach out with any follow-up questions. We've got some contact information in the press release. Second, and, you know, most importantly, I wanna thank the Legacy team. You know, we've got 870-plus team members at our company, and, you know, all of them contributed to the results that we put out today, you know, in a day early after, you know, filing our last 10-K five months late. I wanna thank everybody for their hard work. Everyone contributed here. That's all. Operator, this concludes our call.
Ladies and gentlemen, that does end our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.