Meritage Homes Corporation

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce you to your host, Emily Todano, VP of Investor Relations and External Communications. Thank you, Emily. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to our analyst call to discuss our first quarter 2025 results. We issued the press release yesterday after the market closed. You can find it along with the slides we'll refer to during this call on our website at investors.meritagehomes.com or by selecting the investor relations link at the bottom of our homepage. Please refer to slide two, cautioning you that our statements during this call as well as in the earnings release and accompanying slides contain forward-looking statements. Those and any other projections represent the current opinions of management, which are subject to change at any time, and we assume no obligation to update them. Any forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain. Our actual results may be materially different than our expectations due to a wide variety of risk factors, which we have identified and listed on this slide, as well as in our earnings release and most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically our 2024 Annual Report on Form 10-K. We have also provided a reconciliation of certain non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our earnings release, as compared to their closest related gap measures. All share and per share amounts have been retroactively restated to reflect the stock split for the first quarter 2024 period. With us today to discuss our results are Steve Hilton, Executive Chairman, Philippe Lord, CEO, and Giles Ferruza, Executive Vice President and CFO of Meritage Homes. We expect today's call to last about an hour. A replay will be available on our website later today. I'll now turn it over to Mr. Hilton. Steve?

Thank you, Emily. Welcome to everyone listening in on our call. Today I'll start by highlighting our first quarter results and current market trends. We will cover our strategy and quarterly performance. Hila will provide a financial overview of the first quarter and forward-looking guidance. Meritage had a healthy start to 2025. selling almost 3,900 homes in the first quarter, despite January starting off slower than anticipated. We delivered our second-highest first quarter orders and closings in company history and achieved an average absorption pace of 4.4 net sales per month this quarter as we capitalized on the higher demand of the spring selling season. We had a plentiful supply of available inventory ready and attractive finance incentives allowing us to overcome volatile and elevated mortgage rates and fragile consumer sentiment due to increasing macroeconomic concerns. With over 60% of this quarter's closings also sold during this quarter, our backlog conversion rate was yet another all-time high for the company of 221%. Reflecting the benefit of our strategic pivot, Releasing homes for sale within 60 days of completion allows us to shrink the sale to close timeline, and we're able to quickly move finished spec inventory during the quarter. Our 3,416 deliveries this quarter generated home closing revenues of $1.3 billion, and we achieved home closing gross margin of 22%. With diluted EPS of $1.69, we increased our book value per share 11% year over year, delivered a return on equity of 14.5% as of March 31, 2025. We acknowledge that the current macroeconomic conditions have increased uncertainty, resulting in some softening of the housing market as buyer psychology and the cost of homeownership are being challenged. Yet, as a result of favorable demographic trends and the limited supply of homes at affordable price points, the new home market, especially at lower price points, is capturing a large portion of total home buyer demand. Our strategy is focused on 60-day closings, 60-day closing ready commitment and move-in ready inventory is creating a differentiator for us by providing certainty to our customers in a highly unpredictable market. And with that, I will now turn it over to Philippe.