Full Transcript: LGI Homes Q1 2026 Earnings Call

LGI Homes (NASDAQ:LGIH) reported first-quarter financial results on Tuesday. The transcript from the company's first-quarter earnings call has been provided below. This content is powered by Benzinga APIs. For comprehensive financial data and transcripts, visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/. View the webcast at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/sxzea8ot/ Summary LGI Homes reported first-quarter revenue of $319.7 million, a 9% decrease year over year due to an 11.5% decline in closings, although the average selling price increased by 2.9% to $362,924. The company ended the quarter with a backlog of 1,699 homes, marking a 63% increase year over year, and raised its full-year gross margin guidance to 18.5-20.5% and adjusted gross margin to 22-24%. Operational highlights include delivering 916 homes, maintaining steady demand across markets, and achieving a 2.2 closings per community per month average, with top-performing markets being Charlotte, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Northern California, and Seattle. LGI Homes emphasized the strength of its self-developed land pipeline, which is nearly 100% on balance sheet, and stressed its strategic focus on affordability and the entry-level market. Management expressed confidence in achieving full-year guidance metrics, including annual closings between 4,600 and 5,400 homes, despite challenges like a 45.6% cancellation rate driven by financing issues. Full Transcript OPERATOR Welcome to LGI Homes first quarter 2026 conference call. Today's call is being recorded, and a replay will be available on the company's website at www.lgihomes.com. after management's prepared comments, there will be a question and answer opportunity. At this time, I will turn the call over to Joshua Fatter, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations and Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Joshua Fatter (Executive Vice President of Investor Relations and Capital Markets) Thanks and good afternoon. I will remind listeners that this call contains forward-looking statements, including management's views on the company's business strategy, outlook, plans, objectives and guidance for future periods. Such statements reflect management's current expectations and involve assumptions and estimates that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause those expectations to be incorrect.. You should review our filings, with the SEC for a discussion of the risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ from those presented today. All forward-looking statements must be considered in light of those related risks and you shouldn't place undue reliance on such statements which reflect management's current viewpoints and are not guarantees of future performance. On this call, we'll discuss non-GAAP financial measures that are not intended to be considered in isolation or as substitutes for for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of non GAAP financial measures to the most comparable measures prepared in accordance with GAAP can be found in the press release we issued this morning and in our quarterly report on Form 10Q for the period ended March 31, 2026 that will be filed with the SEC today. This filing will be accessible on LGI Homes and the SEC's website. I'm joined today by Eric Lever, LGI Homes Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, and Charles Merdian, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. I'll now turn the call over to Eric. Eric Lever (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board) Thanks, Josh. Good afternoon and welcome to our earnings call. The first quarter played out largely as we expected, reflecting disciplined execution across the organization and steady demand for our homes. As the quarter progressed, sales activity improved across most of our markets, enabling continued backlog growth, and providing a solid foundation as we have transitioned into the spring selling season. During the quarter, we delivered a total of 916 homes. Of this total, 881 homes contributed directly to our revenue of $320 million. The remaining 35 closings were currently or previously leased homes, the gains from which were reflected in other income. Notably, our average selling price increased nearly 3% to approximately $363,000, demonstrating our ability to preserve pricing while continuing to support affordability through targeted price discounts and financing strategies. We ended the quarter with 142 active communities and averaged 2.2 closings, per community per month. This was consistent with the pace achieved last year and in line with our expectations for the period. During the first quarter, our top five markets on a closings per community basis Charlotte with 4.6, Las Vegas with 3.2, Phoenix with 2.8 and Northern California and Seattle each with 2.7 closings per community per month. Our gross margin before inventory related charges of 20.2% and adjusted gross margin of 23.4% were both modestly above the high end of our full year outlook, highlighting the benefits of self development, the durability of our operating model and the strategic choices we continue to make around pricing incentives and inventory management. Sales activity during the quarter was positive. Net orders were 1,221 homes and our cancellation rate was 45.6% driven by buyers who were ultimately unable to qualify for financing. Our backlog at quarter end was 1699 homes which represents a 63% increase year over year, a 22% increase sequentially. It marks the highest number of units and backlog since the first quarter of 2022. Before turning the call over to Charles, I want to emphasize our confidence in the long term fundamentals of the housing market. The persistent undersupply of attainable housing coupled with favorable demographic trends continues to support a long Runway of demand for homeownership. LGI homes' 100% spec entry level focused business model centered on providing an affordable alternative, to renting is purpose built for this backdrop. Underpinning that model is a strong low cost land pipeline which is nearly 100% on balance sheet, providing investors full transparency into our capital structure, driving margin durability by capturing the developer's economic value and minimizing reliance on external partners whose priorities may not align with the long term value creation we're focused on. These advantages underpin our confidence as we focus on execution today while investing to drive durable long term growth for many years to come. With that, I'll invite Charles to provide additional details on our financial results. Thank you Eric and good afternoon. Charles Merdian (Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer) Revenue in the first quarter was $319.7 million based on 881 homes closed at an average sales price of $362,924 up 2.9% year over year, primarily driven by geographic mix and a lower volume of wholesale closings.. The 9% year over year decrease in revenue was driven by an 11.5% decline in closings, partially offset by higher ASP. Of our total closings, 111 were through our wholesale channel representing 12.6 billion percent of total closings compared to 179 or 18% during the same period last year. Our first quarter gross margin was 18.7% in line with the guidance provided on our last call. Gross margin excluding impairment related charges was 20.2% compared to 21% in the same period last year. The year over year decline was primarily attributable to financing incentives and discounts on older inventory, partially offset by the structural margin benefit of our self developed lot positions and our disciplined approach to pricing. Adjusted gross margin was 23.4%, up 110 basis points sequentially in line with our result last year and above the guidance we provided on our last call. Adjusted gross margin excluded $10 million of capitalized interest and $389,000 related to purchase accounting. Combined selling, general and Administrative expenses totaled $60.5 million or 18.9% of revenue, an improvement of 200 basis points year over year. Selling expenses were $32.7 million or 10.2% of revenue compared to 12% in the same period last year. The decrease was primarily due to overall cost efficiencies in advertising spend. General and Administrative expenses were $27.9 million or 8.7% of revenue compared to 8.9% in the same period last year. Other income was $4.9 million driven primarily by the sale of 35 currently or previously leased homes and gains coming from the sale of finished lots of commercial land. Adjusted EBITDA increased 30% to 24.4 million representing 7.6% of revenue compared to 5.3% in the first quarter of last year. Pre tax net income was $4.3 million or 1.4% of revenue. The effective tax rate in the first quarter was 50% above our outlook and reflects the timing impact of share based compensation expenses that vested during the quarter. This impact is isolated to the first quarter and we continue to expect our full year effective tax rate to be approximately 26.5% in line with our previously issued guidance. First quarter net income was $2.2 million or $0.09 per basic and diluted share excluding impairment related charges and associated tax impacts. Net income was $5.6 million or $0.24 per basic and diluted share. Turning to our land position at March 31, we owned and controlled 59,028 lots, a decrease of 12.9% year over year and 3% sequentially. The decrease reflects our continued strategy of aligning land investment with current sales trends, acquiring lots in markets where demand supports it, and moderating investment where inventory rebalancing is still underway. Of our total lots, 51,193 or 86.7% were owned and 7,835 lots, or 13.3%, were controlled. Of our owned lots, 34,168 were raw land or land under development, approximately 20% of which were in active development and 80% were in engineering or undeveloped land. Of the remaining 17,025 owned lots, 13,404 were finished vacant lots and 3,621 were completed homes or homes under construction. During the quarter. We started 1,137 homes to support the seasonal uplift in sales trends. I'll now turn the call over to Josh for a discussion of our capital position. Joshua Fatter (Executive Vice President of Investor Relations and Capital Markets) Thanks, Charles. We ended the quarter with $1.7 billion of debt outstanding, including $579 million drawn on our revolver, resulting in a debt-to-capital ratio of 44.8% and a net debt-to-capital ratio of 44%. The slight increase sequentially reflects our typical first quarter cadence and as we invest in vertical construction ahead of the spring selling season, we remain focused on reducing leverage as we work through older inventory and selectively monetize lot positions with a long term objective of maintaining a ratio of total debt-to-capital near the midpoint of our 35% to 45% target range. Total liquidity at the end of the quarter was $355 million, including $61 million of cash on hand and $294 million available under our revolving credit facility. We ended the quarter with over $2.1 billion in equity, equating to a book value per share of. $90.50 at this point. I'll turn the call back over to Eric. Eric Lever (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board) Thanks Josh. We are encouraged by what we're experiencing in the market as we transition into the spring selling season. As always, affordability, and consumer confidence remain important considerations for buyers, particularly in a volatile rate environment. However, despite an uptick in interest rates late in the quarter driven by geopolitical uncertainty, recent trends have remained healthy across most of our markets, suggesting many buyers are looking beyond short term rate movements and focusing on value and the impact of the tools we're using to support affordability. Buyers continue to inquire about homeownership and engage with our sales teams and we are right on track to achieve the full year. Guidance metrics we provided on our last call, including annual closings between 4,600 and 5,400 homes, 150 to 160 active communities by year end, an average selling price between 355 and $365,000. And SGA as a percentage of revenue between 15 and 16%. However, based on first quarter margins exceeding the range of our previous guidance and our visibility into our growing backlog, we are raising our full year gross margin to a range between 18.5 and 20.5% and adjusted gross margin between 22 and 24%. We believe we are executing well on the elements of our business that we can control and we're positive about our ability to achieve our full year expectations. Finally, I want to thank our team members, for their ongoing dedication to our company and our customers. Being recognized for the sixth consecutive year, as a Top Workplaces USA employer based on direct employee feedback is a significant honor and underscores the strength of our culture as experienced by our people. Thank you for your hard work and for ensuring that LGI Homes is providing the best customer experience in the industry. We'll now open the call for questions. OPERATOR Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 11. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star 11 again. Our first question comes from Trevor Allison with Wolff Research. Your line is open. Trevor Allison (Equity Analyst at Wolff Research) Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. First one's on gross margin better than you guys were anticipating. You're raising your full year guidance as well, so that's encouraging. Heading in the right direction. You talked about some strategic decisions around pricing incentives. Can you talk about what drove the better gross margin than what you were anticipating and what's driving your improved outlook for the year? Yeah, Trevor, thanks. This is Eric, I can start. I think the driver gross margin a couple different things. One is we're seeing cost relief consistently throughout the quarter. The team's doing a great job of reducing our older inventory. So our newer inventory that's closing in the quarter, we were able to push pricing in a number of select communities across the country in the quarter. And also, you know, geographic mix always plays a part in gross margin as well. But because of the success in the first quarter, we thought it was prudent to raise the gross margin for the year and are comfortable with that new range. Okay, thanks, Eric. And then second is on demand trends through the quarter. Sounds like those were still relatively healthy. Did you see any impact in March as rates went up and you had the Iran conflict really start to take off and Then how has demand trended so far in April perhaps relative to seasonality. And I'm not sure if I heard an April closings number as well as any, any color so far on how April is shaping up as well. Yeah, sure. This is Eric again. I can start with that. So you know, January and February were tougher closing, March tougher closing months. You know, March recovered based on the strength of February sales and then that strength continued into March. We anticipate closing between 400 and 450 in April. It's still a little early. We're waiting for all of our final underwriting and mortgage commitments to get everything scheduled over the next couple days here, but should be similar to March, similar to last year and somewhere in that 4 to 450 range for the month of April. And I would say sales trends in April have been similar to March. There does not seem to be an impact because of war or higher rates. There's a little bit of seasonality built in. But, we continue to spend money on marketing. We're continuing to see demand. Our teams continue to do a great job with that customer experience, working with them on their affordability, working with them on down payment, paying off debt, whatever is needed to get them into the house. It's still a challenging time, but our teams are doing a great job dealing with those challenges of affordability and really working hard and producing results. I think relative to the last couple years are more positive. Thanks for all the color and good luck moving forward. Thank you. Appreciate it. Michael Ruhad (Equity Analyst at JPMorgan) Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Ruhad with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just also obviously going to be a lot of focus on the gross margin. So just to. To kind of revisit that, if I may, Eric, I think you cited cost relief, some pricing power and some mix. I just wanted to clarify, are those factors all kind of what played out to the upside relative to your original expectations in the, you know, when you provided guidance for the quarter or was there one particular factor that was more kind of drove the upside versus others Eric Lever (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board) No, I think it's all played a factor, Michael. And also, you know, the way we usually focus on guidance, we want to be conservative with our guidance. We weren't sure going into the year where gross margin was going to be exactly. So it's probably a conservative guide to start with, which we hope it's still conservative but comfortable with the number for now. And then also a lot of on our gross margin. And we've been talking about the strength of our balance sheet, the value of our land. LGI does a lot of self development across the United States.. So our gross margin should be higher than our peer group. We have to make sure we're capturing that developer profit inside of that gross margin as well as providing incentives to our customers to keep up with the competition. And we're still leaning into incentives but increasing gross margin at the same time. Michael Ruhad (Equity Analyst at JPMorgan) Okay, no, I appreciate that. And then I guess also as we kind of think about the rest of the year for this metric, I believe you took up the adjusted gross margin outlook to a range of 22 to 24%. So in the first quarter, excluding purchase accounting, you were, you know, closer to the high end of that range, you know, 23.4. So how should we think about the second quarter? How should we think about the second quarter coming up? And are there any factors that might kind of push you more towards the middle of the range, which would imply maybe the rest of the year on average being slightly below the first quarter? Eric Lever (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board) Yeah, obviously it's going to depend on we're still selling a lot of houses for the second quarter. It's going to depend on mix, can depend on other factors on pricing. But generally we expect the second quarter adjusted gross margin to be similar to first, which is why right in the middle or just above the mid part of our range on our annual guidance. Michael Ruhad (Equity Analyst at JPMorgan) Okay, great. And one more if I could, the cancellation rate being somewhat elevated the last couple of quarters. I'm just curious on what impact that might have on the operations. You know, certainly, you know, this quarter you were able to achieve a solid gross margin above guidance. So that, that's certainly a positive. But anything we should think about in terms of maybe any impact potentially negative or not of the, you know, 40% plus can rate that we've seen for a couple quarters now. Eric Lever (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board) Yeah, I think the emphasis should be on our closing guide. And the closing guide remains same. Our backlog is the highest since 2022, which we're excited about. And then from this point forward, it's really just managing the pipeline. Because of the challenging affordability situations and the challenging absorption rate, we have, been working with customers,. We've had a lot more flexibility of keeping the customers on the houses longer as they're saving up for down payment or working on paying off some debt, working on their credit scores. And we think that's been a positive strategy and a great customer experience as well as benefiting LGI as that backlog has grown, that may not be a tool that's needed. We'll look at that and analyze that community by community across the United States. We need to continue to work with those customers, continue to follow up our team of 400 plus salespeople across the United States. That's one of the benefits of lgi. And our strength is we have the team in place to keep in contact with these customers because we are still dealing with an affordable, affordability challenged markets. But, we believe we're up for that challenge. The team's doing a great job. The leadership's doing a great job. And we anticipate cancellation rate remaining elevated for the last couple of years based on historical. But we think that's a positive and necessary for this point in the cycle. Great. Thanks so much. You're welcome. Thank you. OPERATOR Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Riego with Texas Capital Securities. Your line is open. Eric Lever (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board) Thank you. Backlog has increased sequentially. Has the time to close on this? also increased and or do you see any evidence that time to close could be improving? I'm going to say generally yes, Alex,, we don't have the information in front of us, but time to close with customers saving for down payment as an example is going to be elevated. And then the other thing that's happening in our business which is positive is sales relative to the amount of houses we had under construction is increased. So we're selling more customers further out and customers that are going on houses that are under construction or going on houses that are permits in hand or permits pending that we haven't started construction on. So that's going to lengthen the time under contract to close. But we also think that's positive as well Alex Riego (Equity Analyst at Texas Capital Securities) and to kind of sort of follow up on that. Are you still seeing an improvement in Eric Lever (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board) the move up buyers? Yeah, I think the overall business is so focused on the entry level buyer, it's tough to judge. But we are seeing success in our Trotta brand. It's about 10% of our community count nationwide, around 15 communities. But the overall market, like we said in our scripted remarks, is still a challenging market. We're dealing with some economic uncertainty, some consumer confidence. All those headwinds are still there. I think where our optimism comes from is relative to expectations. We feel really good where we are and we feel really good about our guidance for the year. Thank you. You're welcome. OPERATOR Thank you. Our next question comes from Jay McCandless with Citizens Bank. Your line is open. Jay McCandless (Equity Analyst at Citizens Bank) Hey, good afternoon, everyone. So the first question, I had really good gains in the Northwest. Average sales price up 7%. The west was up 5%. Was this more of a one off thing or is this representative of what you have sitting in backlog right now and maybe help you guys get to the high end of that ASP guide for the year? Eric Lever (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board) Yeah, I think it's community by community specific, Jay. We've opened up some new communities and I think the whole industry is going to be facing this. As new communities come online, our lot cost is going to be higher. That's directly going to have an impact on asp. So, there is going to be a geographical mix component in our average ASP for the year. Certainly the west has the highest average sales price. So a percentage how the west compares to the rest of the company for the year will certainly dictate where we are in the ASP range or even exceeding it. Jay McCandless (Equity Analyst at Citizens Bank) I guess that's kind of my next question then. If you think about the price cost right now, it sounds like you guys are seeing a little lower direct cost. But what are you seeing for land and especially with lumber prices starting to move up? How are you feeling about that for the balance of the year? Eric Lever (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board) Yeah, I haven't seen a lot of land development cost increases and house cost increases. With oil where it is is right now we don't expect our house costs to go down. You know, we do not really forecast costs going down over the next few quarters or year or you know, three to five years from now. We tell all of our employees we believe house prices are going up because every component of building a house and developing land is likely to be higher over the next few quarters and next few years. So that's going to continually drive our ASP higher. You got anything to add to that, Charles? Charles Merdian (Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer) Yeah, the other thing I would add, Jay, is, you know, we have 13,000 finished vacant lots. So the development costs that we're seeing are really going to affect most of those communities will be 12 to 18 months out. So another reason why we feel very strongly about our balance sheet and our land in inventory, because those costs are generally pretty locked already as those sections have been developed. We run about just above 20% of our ASP and finished lot costs and feel pretty confident in that number going forward and maybe some potential upside as we get into the later part of the year and next year. Just two more for me. Eric, in your prepared comments you talked about how the age of some of the specs you're selling now are younger. Do you guys have any type of quantification around what the average age of your homes in the field are now maybe versus where they were a year ago. I don't have anything quantifiable. Charles, you got anything to add? I think what I would say is we're running about 2,100 completed units right now, Jay. And that's a little heavier than we typically would like on our overall inventory. So we have about 1300 that we've started. We didn't start a lot in January or February, but that trend is increasing as we're kind of getting into the summer. So I think as we continue to work on our older inventory, we would expect our completed inventory units to start to work their way down into a more balanced. Typically, we would want to see about half of our inventory incomplete and about half of our inventory in progress. So still a little bit heavier weighted to complete. But that's been a focus that we've been working on, and we expect that trend down. Okay, great. Tall head. Thanks, guys. Thank you. OPERATOR Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Barron with Housing Research Center. Your line is open. Alex Barron (Equity Analyst at Housing Research Center) Hi, good afternoon. I just wanted to confirm your order. ASP seems to have gone up in the quarter. I'm just getting that from looking at the ASP and the in the backlog relative to last quarter. I was just wondering what drove that. Do you guys have a big change in mix or were you just, you know, any other explanation there? Yeah, I think the backlog ASP is elevated primarily because of the results in the West. In the west, we tend to sell further out, not as much spec inventory on the ground. So that probably comes down a little bit in the future and consistent with our annual guidance for asp. Okay, got it. And in terms of the wholesale business, do you guys have any sort of breakdown as far as what percentage of the orders came from that versus just regular sales? Yeah, I can start and Charles can add to it, you know, the closings. The wholesale business is 12.6% of our closings in Q1. We may have to get back to you on the order number, unless you have it, Charles. Charles Merdian (Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer) Well, I would say the backlog at the end of the quarter is going to have about just over 400 units related to wholesale. So, we had a fairly large transaction in the fourth quarter that we booked and not a lot of activity in the first quarter. So I would say the order activity in the first quarter was pretty limited from wholesale business, but we do have a decent backlog with the, you know, backlog over 400 is up 70% from last year first quarter. So we feel good about the units we have under contract going in. And then as the wholesale market kind of starts to evolve as the year goes on. We'll kind of be able to evaluate where the full year results are going to end up. Alex Barron (Equity Analyst at Housing Research Center) Okay, do you guys have any guidance or suggestions how to think about the other income line item? I'm not sure how much visibility we have there. Charles Merdian (Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer) Sure, Alex. It is pretty variable. This is Charles. I think over the last few quarters, we've been around the $5 million number. And that's a combination of mix of selling lots and commercial land and also the results from our. The profit from our previously leased homes. So there's a potential for that one to bounce around a little bit. But I think for modeling purposes, if you kind of look at what we've done over the last several quarters and extend that out, that's a reasonable guess at this point. All right. Thank you so much. You're welcome. OPERATOR Thank you. At this time, I'm showing no further questions. I'd like to turn the call back over to Eric Leeper for closing remarks. Eric Leeper Thanks everyone for participating on today's call, your interest in LGI Homes, and have a great day. OPERATOR Thank you. This concludes LGI Homes first quarter 2026 conference call. Have a great day. Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.