Welcome to LGI Homes' third quarter 2021 conference call. Today's call is being recorded, and a replay will be available on the company's website later today at www.lgihomes.com. We have allocated an hour for prepared remarks and Q&A. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference call, please press star zero. At this time, I will turn the call over to Joshua Fattor, Vice President of Investor Relations at LGI Homes.
Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to LGI Homes conference call to discuss our results for the third quarter and the nine months ended September 30, 2021. Today's call contains forward-looking statements regarding our business strategy, outlook, plans, objectives, and updated guidance for 2021. These statements, which speak only as of today's call and are based on management's expectations, are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties. You should review our filings with the SEC, including our risk factors and cautionary statement about forward-looking statement sections, for a discussion of the risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. LGI Homes assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.
Reconciliations of any non-GAAP financial measures discussed on today's call to the most comparable measures prepared in accordance with GAAP are included in the press release issued this morning and in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2021 that we expect to file with the SEC later today. This filing will be accessible on the SEC's website and in the investor relations section of our company website. Our hosts today are Eric Lipar, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Charles Merdian, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. I'll now turn the call over to Eric.
Thanks, Josh. Good afternoon, and welcome to our earnings call. I'll start by sharing highlights of our third quarter before handing it off to Charles to provide more details on our financial results. Finally, I'll close with an update on our performance so far in the fourth quarter and discuss our updated guidance for the full year. First, I'd like to recognize that next week marks our eighth anniversary as a public company. At the time of our IPO, our goal was to grow the company by replicating our business model in new markets across the country.
Over the last eight years, we've grown our closings and revenues at annual rates of 29% and 39% respectively, quadrupled our community count, delivered some of the industry's most attractive and consistent profitability metrics, and have created significant value for our shareholders, demonstrated by the 1,200% appreciation in our stock price. Today, we're the tenth-largest builder in the country, with operations in 19 states and 35 markets. Year- after -year, we've proven that our unique operating model is scalable and successful in every market we've entered. Reflecting on these successes, I'm most proud that we've maintained our people-focused culture that rewards excellence and makes homeownership attainable for families across the country. I thank all of our employees for their hard work, commitment to our customers, belief in our values, and loyalty to our company.
Because of their dedication, we have consistently achieved record-setting results, and the third quarter was no exception. During the quarter, we set new company records for revenue, closings, and absorptions despite ongoing supply chain challenges and a lower number of active communities. Closings in the third quarter increased nearly 20% over last year to a record 2,499 homes. Combined with higher average sales prices, this drove a 41% increase in our revenue to a third quarter record of $752 million. During the quarter, nine of our 35 markets delivered double-digit absorptions, and we averaged a record 8.1 closings per community per month company-wide. Charlotte was our top market with 15.7 closings per community per month. Second was San Antonio with 14.1, followed by Austin with 13.6.
Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth each achieved 10.8 closings per community per month. We remain focused on our core value of exceptional customer service by honoring the commitments made to our buyers and held fast to our goal of keeping homeownership attainable without sacrificing our margins. Despite recent cost pressures, we delivered gross margin of 26.9% and adjusted gross margin of 28.2%, our best third quarter performance since 2014. Finally, our SG&A expense ratio reached an all-time new low, which helped drive net income to a third quarter record of $101 million. Global supply chain disruptions have extended construction and development cycle times across our markets. I'm grateful to our construction and purchasing teams who work closely with suppliers and trade partners to manage these headwinds and limit their impact to our customers.
Our 100% spec-focused model is a strong advantage in the current environment. We pre-select the fit and finishes of our homes, enabling us to quickly pivot between suppliers and even substitute alternative SKUs to keep construction moving forward. While these challenges are expected to continue, we believe our people and unique operating model position us to deliver homes at a pace in line with achieving our full year closing guidance. Throughout the quarter, we continued to work through the large backlog we built early in the year and to release new homes for sale once we had visibility on construction times and costs. As we projected on our last call, the slower pacing of sales, combined with last year's strong order comp, result in the 78% decline in net orders in the third quarter. On a year-to-date basis, the decline was 2.8%.
Further declines in order growth are expected as we convert our remaining backlog and continue to compare results to all-time high comps in the fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of 2021. We will continue to manage our sales pace with the goal of bringing the size of our backlog and our customers' time in it back to normal levels. Demand continues to outpace supply, and in many communities, we continue to sell out of homes as soon as we release them due to existing wait lists. However, we are seeing signs that demand levels are normalizing from the surge that began last year. While price increases are certainly playing a role in moderating demand, we don't think it's the primary driver as overall affordability continues to be supported by low interest rates.
Instead, we believe that the industry is slowly working through the earlier demand surge, and that as these homes deliver, we should return to a normalized demand environment driven by healthy long-term growth fundamentals. During the quarter, we made significant investments in land and lots to meet that demand in the years to come. Last quarter, we acquired over 14,000 lots and increased our total lot position to nearly 88,000 while maintaining our disciplined underwriting criteria at what we consider to be normalized absorption assumptions, positioning us well for our future growth. With that, I'll turn the call over to Charles for more details on our financial results.
Thanks, Eric. Our revenue in the third quarter increased 40.7% year-over-year to a record $752 million. We closed 2,499 homes, a 19.5% increase year-over-year. These closings included 433 homes sold through our wholesale business, representing 17.3% of our total closings, compared to 92 homes or 4.4% of our total closings in the same quarter last year. Our average sales price increased 17.7% over the same period last year, and 8.5% sequentially to a record $300,764.
Price increases were driven by a favorable demand environment that allowed us to pass through costs, increase closings in certain markets with higher price points, particularly in the Northwest, and partially offset by a higher percentage of wholesale closings. Gross margin as a percentage of revenue this quarter was 26.9% compared to 25.3% during the same period last year. This 160 basis point improvement resulted from our success passing through cost increases, lower capitalized interest expense, and continued operating leverage, partially offset by higher lot costs and a larger percentage of wholesale closings. Excluding wholesale, gross margin was up over 260 basis points year-over-year. And given our performance to date, we're tightening our gross margin guidance by 50 basis points to a range of 26.5%-27.5%.
Our adjusted gross margin as a percentage of revenue this quarter was 28.2% compared to 27.3% for the same quarter last year, a 90 basis points improvement. Adjusted gross margin excludes approximately $8.6 million of capitalized interest charged to cost of sales during the quarter and $1 million related to purchase accounting, together representing 130 basis points. Similar to gross margin, we are tightening our adjusted gross margin guidance by 50 basis points to a range of 28%-29%. Combined selling, general, and administrative expenses for the third quarter were 8.6% of revenue compared to 10.8% during the same period last year, representing an improvement of 220 basis points year-over-year.
This was the lowest SG&A expense ratio in our history, further highlighting the continued strength of demand across our markets. Selling expenses for the quarter were $39.9 million or 5.3% of revenue compared to $35.5 million or 6.6% of revenue for the third quarter of 2020. The 130 basis point improvement was primarily related to operating leverage realized from the increase in revenue. General and administrative expenses totaled $24.5 million or 3.3% of revenue compared to 4.2% for the same quarter last year. The 90 basis point improvement was primarily driven by operating leverage resulting from higher revenue, increased absorptions, and a larger percentage of wholesale closings.
As a result of our performance to date, we are maintaining our SG&A expense guidance in the range between 9%-9.5%. EBITDA for the quarter was $135.9 million or 18.1% of revenue, a 180 basis point improvement over the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $147.8 million or 19.7% of revenue, a 320 basis point improvement over the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA excludes approximately $13.3 million related to the redemption premium debt issuance costs and discount previously capitalized associated with our 2026 senior notes and $1 million related to purchase accounting, together representing approximately 160 basis points.
Pre-tax net income for the quarter was $127 million or 16.9% of revenue, a 230 basis point improvement over the third quarter of 2020. Our effective tax rate in the third quarter was 20.8%. The year-over-year increase in our effective tax rate was due to the Retroactive Federal Energy Efficient Homes Tax Credit we recognized in the third quarter of last year. Given our performance to date, we are tightening our effective tax rate guidance for the full year by 50 basis points to range between 20%-21%.
Our third quarter reported net income increased 13% year-over-year to $100.6 million or 13.4% of revenue, and our third quarter earnings were $4.10 per basic share and $4.05 per diluted share. Excluding charges related to debt extinguishment, net income in the third quarter would have been $111.1 million, and earnings would have been $4.53 per basic share and $4.48 per diluted share. Third quarter gross orders were 1,389, a decrease of 68.2%, and net orders were 790, a decrease of 77.7% year-over-year.
Reiterating Eric's earlier comments, the recent decline in our orders is a function of sales pacing, a desire to limit our buyers' time and backlog, and a record third-quarter comp last year. Our cancellation rate for the third quarter was 43.1%, and this was expected as we released fewer new homes for sale to compensate for cancellations that occurred in our backlog. And we would expect this trend to continue as we pace our sales and work through our backlog. We finished the third quarter with a backlog of 3,090 homes, representing a decrease of 13.7% year-over-year. The value of our backlog on September thirtieth was approximately $1 billion, an increase of 2.9% year-over-year.
We continue to make significant progress acquiring land to support our long-term growth objectives and finished the quarter with our strongest land position ever. As of September 30, our land portfolio consisted of 87,512 owned and controlled lots, a 53% year-over-year increase and a 15.3% increase sequentially. We added almost 4,200 new lots to our owned inventory and ended the quarter with 44,174 owned lots, an increase of 35.4% year-over-year and 4% sequentially. 7,342 of our owned lots were finished vacant lots, and 32,250 were either raw land or land under development.
During the quarter, we started over 2,300 homes, and as of September 30, we had 4,582 completed homes, information centers or homes in process. Excluding our information centers, only 456 of these homes were complete, a decline of 55.8% compared to the 1,031 completed homes at the end of third quarter last year. Finally, we had 43,338 controlled lots at quarter end, an increase of 76.5% year-over-year and 29.7% sequentially. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with approximately $47 million in cash compared to $112 million last quarter.
Our higher cash balance last quarter was attributable to excess proceeds from the issuance of our new 2029 senior notes after giving effect to the temporary paydown of our revolving credit facility. During the quarter, we used amounts available on our credit facility to redeem all of our outstanding 2026 senior notes, and as a result, we recognized a $10.3 million early redemption expense and expensed $3 million of deferred financing costs and discounts that were previously being amortized in association with the notes. The completion of this refinancing successfully extends our debt maturity by three years to 2029 and saves $8.6 million per year in interest expense. At the end of September, we had approximately $666 million in combined total debt outstanding under our revolving credit facility and our 2029 senior notes.
Our available borrowing capacity under our credit facility was approximately $460 million. Including cash on hand, we ended the quarter with total liquidity of $506.3 million. Our net debt to capitalization ratio was 31.7% compared to 36.1% at the same time last year. In the last year, our shareholders' equity has increased by over $323 million to more than $1.3 billion. Additionally, as a result of our strong operating results and profitability, we delivered a return on equity of 38.7% for the twelve-month period ended September 30. During the third quarter, we repurchased 358,817 shares of our common stock for $56.1 million.
Since 2018, we have repurchased nearly 1.7 million shares of our common stock. As of September 30th, there were 24.3 million shares outstanding and $162.7 million remaining on our existing stock repurchase program.
We expect to continue these systematic and opportunistic share reductions as a component of our broader capital allocation priorities. At this point, I'll turn the call back over to Eric.
Thanks, Charles. Our strong performance has continued into the fourth quarter. Subject to review and verification of fundings, we expect to send out a press release tomorrow formally announcing that in line with our expectations, we closed approximately 725 homes in October. Moving to our updated full year guidance, we now expect to end the year with fewer communities than we guided to last quarter. Elevated absorptions have caused communities to close out earlier than planned, and supply shortages have extended development timelines. As a result, we now expect to end the year with 100-105 active communities. We continue to model flat to slightly up community count in 2022, with the expectation of a considerable increase in our communities thereafter.
Despite a lower community count expectation this year, our closing guidance is unchanged, thanks to the phenomenal work our construction and purchasing teams are doing every day to manage the supply chain challenges. Year-to-date closings through October indicate that we remain on pace to deliver between 10,000 and 10,500 homes this year. Similarly, our average sales price guidance of $285,000-$295,000 for the full year is unchanged. As Charles noted, we are tightening our gross margin guidance to a range of 26.5%-27.5%, and our adjusted gross margin to a range of 28%-29%. The third quarter marked our fourth consecutive quarter of single-digit SG&A expense as we benefit from higher closings and average sales prices.
Given our performance to date, we are maintaining our SG&A guidance in a range between 9% and 9.5%, and now expect an effective full year tax rate between 20% and 21%. I'll say again how pleased we are with our results. For the last eight years, we've repeatedly set records, and last quarter was no exception, with new third quarter highs in closings, absorptions, and revenue. Despite industry-wide challenges, we have maintained our strategy of going deeper in our existing markets and expanding to select new markets as we pursue the goal of doubling our community count. Based on our impressive results to date, our strong balance sheet and attractive land pipeline, we believe we're extremely well-positioned to deliver on all of our expectations this year and for many years to come. We'll now open the call for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question you need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please stand by for [Q&A after]. Our first question comes from Jay McCanless with Wedbush. You may proceed with your question.
Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one, Eric, could you please repeat what you said about community growth for 2022?
Yeah. The for community count for 2022, Jay, we said flat to slightly up. Last quarter, we said similar, but since we revised down, now we're saying flat to slightly up for 2022, and then a considerable increase in community count in 2023.
Great. On the cancellation rate, 43% versus, I think it was 19% last year, is part of this rate driven or is part of this you guys canceling out some people who you think might not qualify once the home is ready? Maybe some more color around that.
Yeah, it's really neither of those, Jay. It's really just the orders. It's just the math equation. Since we didn't have very many orders going through this quarter, we're limited on inventory to sell, the cancellation percentage was just a lot bigger number. No, we're honoring all the contracts, the customers we sold the first quarter that are coming through, even though we didn't build in enough of inflation in a lot of cases, upholding our core values of integrity, and if we told a customer we're gonna sell them a house, we're gonna deliver that house to them at that price. Cancellation rate is really just attributable to the lack of orders, and that's attributable to not having a lot of inventory to sell and make sure we're providing good service to our customers.
Okay, great. Thanks for taking my questions.
You're welcome. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Carl Reichardt with BTIG. You may proceed with your question.
Thanks, everybody. I wanted to ask about the lot supply at 88,000, and I think, Charles, you said 7,300 or so finished vacant. If you look at that 88,000 you've got under control, can you tell us what percentage of that is associated with currently open communities? What percentage is associated with, say, what you'd expect to bring to market in 2022 and 2023 and beyond?
Yeah. Thanks, Carl. Yeah, it's a great question. We don't have necessarily that level of detail handy, but what we can say, right now, about the 88,000, about half of them are controlled. Consistent with what we've been talking about in the last couple of quarters, the vast majority of those controlled lots are raw land deals. You know, piggybacking off of Eric's comment about 2023 and 2024, we're just not seeing a lot of finished lot deals in our pipeline. We're focused on buying raw land, putting that into our development pipeline, and getting those ready to deliver as communities in 2023 or 2024.
Okay, that makes sense. It's still. You're gonna do the vast majority self-developed, not finished lot option contracts, and that's been the way you've operated for a while. Okay.
Correct.
Thanks. Then, you made a comment about pricing and normalization. I'm curious if, given the number of closings you had to the wholesale channel, you're seeing similar levels of price resistance from that customer.
This is Eric, Carl. Great question. Yeah, I'd say describe the wholesale business as extremely strong right now. There's like a lot of capital going into that space, and demand is extremely robust. We have very little inventory to sell to the investors, so we've been very pleased with the percentage this year. We're gonna end up, it's gonna be probably 15% of our closings after coming off 17% last quarter, and we're at 14.5% year- to- date. I would describe the wholesale business' demand still being very strong, even at today's pricing.
From a price resistance standpoint, you don't sense you're seeing a similar dynamic to what you're seeing in the consumer channel?
Not as much, no. That is correct.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot, fellas. Appreciate it.
Thanks.
You bet.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Truman Patterson of Wolfe Research. You may proceed with your question.
Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. First, you all are clearly doing a lot of development work. We've been hearing of continued delays or shortages on the muni- and horizontal development side. Last quarter, I believe you all mentioned that the time that you buy a raw piece of land to convert it into closings was kind of 24-36 months. I was just hoping you could give an update there, and what's happened over the past 3-6 months.
Yeah, Truman, this is Eric. I can start. Yeah, I'm not sure if that has changed much in the last quarter. Certainly that timeline's not getting any quicker. It depends on, you know, the market. It depends on how much engineering's been done on the specific track. You know, 24-30 months is certainly a good average for the time it's taken to buy a piece of raw land and turning that into, you know, sales, construction, and closings. You know, we're not going to impact any raw land deal we buy. It won't have an impact on 2022 or 2023 closings. It's now 2024 and 2025 impact.
Okay. Just a housekeeping question on the 2022 community count that you expect to be flattish to slightly up. Is that based on your more traditional kind of 6.5-7 per month absorption pace, or does that, you know, assume an elevated, we'll call it eight per month, that we're seeing in 2021?
No. That would be forecasting more 6.5-7, more normalized, you know, 2018, 2019, and 2020 absorption pace, which is, you know, still very strong, but nothing like this year.
Okay. Final one for me. You know, you all have returned to the 100% spec strategy. You know, could you just discuss what sort of spec build you were able to drive during the quarter? I believe in the prepared remarks you said 456 completed specs. I'm trying to just balance this going forward because your third quarter absorptions based on orders were in the 2.5 per month range.
Yeah, Truman, this is Charles. I mean, we started just over 2,300 homes in the third quarter, and I think, you know, we've always been 100% spec. It's just the demand has been strong and the backlog has been so strong from the early part of the year. 2,300 starts for the quarter and only 456 completed at the end of the quarter is about half of what we had at the end of September last year.
Yeah. Sorry, let me clarify versus presale earlier in the year, switching to selling a little bit later. Okay. Thank you all for your time. I appreciate it.
Thanks, Truman.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Rehaut with J.P. Morgan. You may proceed with your question.
Hi, this is Maggie on for Mike. First question just on the price increases. I believe you said they were still being used to moderate demand, but they had moderated a bit. I was wondering if you could give us an idea of the level of price increase that you saw during the quarter and how you're thinking about the potential for future increases over the next quarter or two.
Yeah, Maggie, this is Eric. I can start. Great question. You know, having our ASP over $300,000 for a quarter is driven by demand but also driven by, you know, costs have been elevated over the last quarter or two. We've had to increase our prices substantially because all the costs are up, you know, whether it's lumber or now all the costs of construction, whether it's fees. You know, on the development side, obviously land is increasing, and all the development costs are increasing as well. So, we have seen some moderation in costs on the construction side. Lumber has come down, but other costs have increased. We are projecting ASP to be very similar in Q4. That's why our guidance remained unchanged.
I think the higher cost environment's gonna be here for a while.
Got it. Thank you. Then second, just on the wholesale part of the business. I believe you said that you're expecting it to end up at about 15% of closings, this year. Just as you look forward over the next couple of years, could you talk about kind of how you think of the wholesale business as a part of your overall business and kind of if you have any target or where you think that might go?
Yeah. We're not ready to give guidance for 2022 on the wholesale business yet, and we're working through our pipeline of getting our contracts closed for year 2021. We're gonna start looking over the next quarter or two, you know, available inventory for 2022. We're confident the demand will be there. We think it's been a very creative part of our business year, this year, as evidenced by we thought it was gonna be 10%-15%. We're gonna end up at the high end of the range, just, I think, amplifying the demand that's in place.
We'll get back to everybody on 2022 or 2023, but we think the demand will be there for it to be still a good part of our business and very accretive to our shareholders.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Stephen Kim with Evercore. You may proceed with your question.
Hey, thanks, guys. This is actually Brian on for Steve. Orders were down significantly on a year-over-year basis, but the number of orders themselves was well below the level of starts you just mentioned you did during the quarter. We've been doing some analysis on how oversold the builders broadly have gotten during the past few quarters, and it looks to us as though you guys were significantly oversold, say, back in, you know, 1Q 2021. In these past two quarters, you've slowed your orders and, in doing so, almost completely reversed that condition. I guess my question is, are you now positioned to, you know, positioned well to lift sales restrictions in the near future and possibly return to a more normal level of sales absorptions next quarter?
Yeah, it's a great question, Brian. This is Eric. Yeah, and I think another way to look at it is, you know, we've got 7,900 closings, 7,916 through Q3. We've got just over 3,000 homes in the backlog, and the vast majority of those are scheduled to close in Q4. We don't have a lot of available inventory to sell still. We are just now starting to sell January and February deliveries, because we're operating in an environment where we're not going to put a house for sale unless we know the cost, because we've been dealing with such an inflationary environment. We don't know the cost until we start construction of the house for certain. Then also providing exceptional customer service to our customers.
We wanna make sure we are confident in the closing dates, and that also doesn't happen until the house has started construction. The houses we are, you know, starting in November that are gonna deliver in January, February, March of next year, we're just starting to put those on the price list. Our orders for Q4 we believe are gonna be down a similar percentage to Q3 in that 70%-80% because we have nothing to sell. Then the first quarter should get back to, you know, normalized order environment. Now, it's a very tough comp because the first quarter of last year, orders were the best in home building history, practically for all of us builders. It's really strong. The first quarter will get back to normalized inventory and orders for us.
Okay, got it. Thanks, Eric. That's really helpful color there. And then my second one, changing gears here, is on the topic of supply chain disruptions. We've heard tales from some of the other builders sending workers across, you know, across state borders to pick up paint or shipping siding from one job site to another. I guess I'm wondering if your 3Q reported margins and/or your projections for 4Q include any negative impact from the supply chain disruptions. If so, are you guys able to quantify that impact?
Yeah, I think the biggest impact on supply chain is just the construction timeline. Our construction timeline is running on average about 30 days longer than it was kind of pre-pandemic or pre this year. I think that's the biggest disruption more than cost. Certainly, costs are elevated, but under the example that you're using, I don't think we're doing a lot of that in the field as far as you know, getting different supplies from out of market or across state lines. You know, our gross margin we would describe as right on track for the third quarter and fourth quarter in our annual guidance. Having adjusted gross margin in the 28% is you know, very strong and stronger than historical and right where we want to be.
I guess one more. Apologies if this was already brought up, but this is probably peak lumber costs that you're working through here in 3Q primarily, right?
Correct. Yeah.
Okay.
Our peak lumber cost was three or four months ago for starts, so it's coming through from closings, you know, September, October. Right now is when it's gonna come through our financials.
Okay, awesome. Thanks a lot, guys. I'll pass it on.
You're welcome. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Kenneth Zener with KeyBanc. You may proceed with your question.
Hello, everybody.
Good afternoon.
I was checking on my mic. I might have missed it, but did you guys lay out the actual, you know, inventory units? I think it was 47, 48 last quarter.
We did 4,582 total units. We had 456 completed, about 4,000-
Right [Crosstalk]
... in WIP. Our WIP number is about the same as it was last year with the completed units being down.
The reason I ask is, I mean, you know, essentially closings, right, inventory, that's what you're starting. You know, the number that you highlighted for starts. What is. You know, as you guys talk about normalization, I think you were saying, you know, inventory should normalize, you know, first quarter, second quarter. Just conceptually, what, you know, are you guys actually targeting just a certain rate there because, you know, I like how you guys focus on closings, not the orders, obviously, those are just outputs. But what are the governors that you're seeing? I mean, if you look back to 2016, I mean, obviously, you've grown a lot, so you're in a lot of regions. There's a lot of different factors undermining trend analysis.
You guys were doing six in 2016, nine in 2017, back to seven in 2018. You did eight in 2018. I mean, is there actually a natural cadence that you're targeting there when you think about your communities? Or is it better talked about, you know, Texas, where you've been, you have extraordinary pace because the communities are larger. In the Northwest, you switch where you cited strong gross margins, it's they're a little smaller, so it's a little different. Could you kind of walk us through what you think the variances are there that are causing that, you know, talk about your normalization next year?
Sure. No, it's a great question, Ken. I think, you know, our philosophy on inventory management is the same, which is we like to see around 4-6 months inventory at any one point in time. At a build pace of 10,000 a year, you would expect to see somewhere around 5,000 units. Coming in at, you know, 4,600 roughly total is close to where we wanna be. The difference, I think, and what we're highlighting is that the shift is into just a little heavy in WIP. We're, you know, delivering the houses and closing with the customers very quickly, which is very good for inventory turnovers and cash flow. We're being very efficient.
I think normalization, what you would see is maybe the total units don't necessarily change by much, but it's a more of a shift of 60/40 WIP to complete or more of a 50/50 type of arrangement rather than the vast majority just being in WIP.
Right. Yeah, 'cause your closing guidance is just half of what you have under construction, right? I mean, it's not bad at all. Last question. For your inventory of $1.9 billion, do you have that broken out for WIP and land, or is that something that just comes out in the Q?
It comes out in the footnote in the 10-Q.
Yeah. Do you happen to have kind of a, like a directional breakout right now by chance?
I do. I've got that for you. In land under development and finished lots was about $1.2 billion. We had $580 million in homes in progress and about $88 million in completed homes, with the balance being in information centers.
Great. Thank you guys very much.
Yeah, you bet.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Deepa Raghavan with Wells Fargo Securities. You may proceed with your question.
Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Two quick questions from me. One, can you talk through your gross margin expectations into 2022? Would that be similar, or should we expect better because you just mentioned you peaked lumber this quarter, next quarter, which means your lumber starts to benefit next year. We have these backlog closing cadence and supply chain delays that may or may not hurt. How do we think about margins into 2022?
Yeah. Deep, this is Eric. I can start. You know, we're not ready to give 2022 guidance for margins yet. That being said, you know, if you look at our historical gross margins and how we buy deals, we do a lot of development. When we underwrite a piece of property we're buying, you know, we underwrite that to an adjusted gross margin of 25%-28%. Historically, that is what we have produced. The wholesale business brings that down, you know, slightly. This year, I described as a very strong gross margin range. Including wholesale, we're likely to end the year, you know, above our historical averages. Next year, more consistency in gross margin.
I mean, we expect adjusted gross margin to be between 25%-28% for the future because that's how we buy deals, and that's our expectation, and we've been very good about, you know, producing those type of results. You know, similar to historical results for gross margins, that's what we always expect.
Okay. That's fair. Can you talk through the amount of lots per community and if that's been increasing or staying the same? I mean, your land, your lots have obviously increased a lot, but looks like none of these are filtering even into 2022. You're calling for everything to benefit 2023 and beyond. Just, you know, curious, is it the same number of lots per community on average?
Yeah. I think directionally, it's probably higher, just because the blend of finished lot developments or finished lots on takedown development, buying from a developer compared to lots that we self-develop.
The percentage is increasing towards more and more self-development, and those tend to be larger. I don't have those, and I don't think Charles has the exact numbers in front of us, but directionally, they're larger land positions.
All right. I'll pass it on. Thanks very much. Good luck.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Barron with Housing Research Center. You may proceed with your question.
Thanks, gentlemen. Good afternoon. I was hoping you could give us the starts number for year-to-date and also for last year's quarter, just to get a sense of how this quarter compares to 2,300.
I'll just flip in here, Alex, to see if I had it handy, which I do not, unfortunately.
Okay. [Crosstalk]
Go ahead and ask the next question. I'll see if I can get back to you here.
Okay, great. Yeah, the other question is, I was wondering if you guys feel like there's been any change in the mix of buyers that you guys are seeing. Obviously, there's a lot of talk of people coming in from other states. You know, there's been baby boomers who all of a sudden are buying houses. Are you guys seeing any change in the mix of your buyers versus what you traditionally saw? That's question one. The other question is, as you guys are doing these land development deals for 2023, do you expect that the prices are gonna be similar or the size of the homes are gonna be similar to what you're doing now? Or are you gonna seek to do something to, you know, make the homes more affordable price point-wise by 2023?
Good questions, Alex. This is Eric. I can start while Charles is looking up those numbers. First of all, our buyers, I'd point to a couple things. One is, you know, we've got our highest average sales price in history. You know, rates have basically been the same for the last year or two. So that means our monthly payments are higher. So the quality of our buyers as measured by the amount of money they're making and their credit is the best it's ever been. Our average credit score last quarter was 711 of our buyers. Historically, that's been a number that's been between 650 and 680. So we're seeing average credit scores and the quality, you know, income and credit-wise for our buyers is increasing.
I think that's direct proportion to the average sales price increasing. We're seeing more investor activity, not only on the wholesale side, but, you know, the ma and pa investors come into the community and purchasing our houses. That's more elevated than it has been in the past. As far as the development goes, you know, affordability is always important to LGI. We are continuously on these larger land plans, looking for density. You know, more lots per acre is important to us as density. Really just for the assumptions going forward on affordability, house cost is really gonna drive it. The deals we're buying from a land standpoint, you know, not a surprise to anyone, land is more expensive than it was two years ago.
You know, currently, it's more expensive to develop land than it was, you know, two years ago or even last year. It really depends on where housing costs. We believe, you know, maybe not off its peak from three or four months ago, but we believe, you know, labor, materials, fees, doing business in the City is gonna continue to get more expensive, just because that's how it's been historically, you know, since we've been operating as a public company.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks, and best of luck.
Alex, I've got those numbers for you here. We've started roughly about 8,500 total for the year, with 3,200 starts in the second quarter this year.
Thanks so much.
Yeah, you bet.
Thank you. At this time, I am not showing any further questions.
All right. Thanks, everyone, for participating on today's call and for your continued interest in LGI Homes. Have a great day, and go [Astros].
Thank you. This concludes LGI Homes' third quarter of 2021 conference call. Have a great day.