PulteGroup, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Jeannie and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Pulte Group, Inc. Q1 2024 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jim Zoomer. You may begin.

Great. Thanks, Jim. Good morning. Let me welcome everyone to today's call. We look forward to discussing Pulte Group's outstanding Q1 operating and financial results. The period ended March 31, 2024. I'm joined on the call today by Ryan Marshall, President and CEO, Bob O'Shaughnessy, Executive Vice President and CFO, Jim Osowski, Senior VP, Finance. A copy of our earnings release and this morning's presentation slides have been posted to our corporate website at PulteGroup.com. We'll post an audio replay of this call later today. I want to alert everyone that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements about the company's expected future performance. Actual results could differ materially from those suggested by our comments made today. The most significant risk factors that could affect future results are summarized as part of today's earnings release and within the accompanying presentation slides. These risk factors and other key information are detailed in our SEC filings, including our annual and quarterly reports. Now let me turn the call over to Ryan. Ryan?

Thanks, Jim, and good morning. As you read in this morning's press release, Holti Group reported record first quarter results across many of our key financial metrics, from top-line revenues of $3.8 billion to gross margins of 29.6% to bottom-line earnings of $3.10 per share, It was an exceptional quarter. These strong first quarter results helped to drive a return on equity of 27.3% for the trailing 12-month period. Our strong first quarter results reflect long-term strategic planning and a disciplined capital allocation process that have underpinned Pulte Group's success for more than a decade. I would suggest that another driver of our record Q1 results are decisions we made in the fourth quarter of last year, decisions that I think are emblematic of the balanced approach we take to running our business and to delivering high returns. On our last earnings call, we talked about decisions we made in the fourth quarter of last year to not lower our prices in a chase for volume. As you will recall, demand in the fourth quarter of 2023 had started slowly but improved as interest rates began to moderate. Had we made the decision to push incentives aggressively as the quarter progressed, we likely could have delivered higher closing volumes in 23. With demand improving in the fourth quarter, we elected to hold our pricing and have had more inventory available for the 2024 spring selling season. The result of this decision is that we were in a position to sell and close more homes in the first quarter of 2024 and at higher margins. That's what you see in our Q&A results. Closings and gross margins above our guide as demand dynamics allowed us to sell more homes with better net pricing. When buyer demand is rising, we're often asked how many more homes we can sell. Given the value we place on entitled lots and our focus on driving high returns, more volume is not the only answer as we work to balance pace and price to drive high returns. Within our operating model, stronger demand provides choices. We can sell more houses or we can raise prices. Or, as was the case in the first quarter, we can do both. What we experienced in the first quarter is that areas of strong demand last year, such as the Southeast, Florida, and Texas, continued to perform well into 2024. Even more positive is that areas that had some struggles in 2023, notably Arizona, California, and Nevada, were much improved in 2024. Consistent with the favorable conditions in the first quarter, almost all our markets displayed pricing dynamics that were stable or improving, which allowed us to raise net pricing in more than half of our communities. As you've heard us say many times, our pricing decisions are made with the goal of delivering high returns and the best overall business outcomes. Depending upon the community and the buyer's wants and needs, we may have raised base prices or lowered incentives. The result being that net pricing in the quarter across many of our markets was up between 1% and 5%. The impact of these actions on our business performance is powerful. As Bob will discuss, we are increasing guidance for both full-year closings and gross margins. Against generally favorable demand conditions, the supply of available housing remains tight. We have the long-term structural issue resulting from a decade of underbuilding that has the country short approximately 4 million housing units. At the same time, the available inventory of existing homes for sale continues to be low as homeowners remain locked into their low mortgage rates. Life happens, so we are seeing some additional existing homes come to market, but the numbers remain well below historic rates. As a home builder, this is a great operating environment as we are supplying a product that a lot of people need and want. I appreciate, however, that our country's housing shortage can create hardships for today's consumers as the lack of supply keeps housing prices high. In fact, some of our recent buyers said that they made the decision to buy now because they couldn't wait any longer for rates to roll back. In a market where home prices are high and because of limited inventory, they will likely continue moving higher. Our company's ability to offer targeted incentives, particularly mortgage rate buy downs, is a powerful tool that can help bridge the affordability gap. For example, in the first quarter, approximately 25% of our home buyers used our national rate program. In a world where the consensus is that interest rates will be higher for longer, our interest rate incentives likely become an even greater competitive advantage especially relative to the existing home seller. Higher interest rates create additional challenges for today's homebuyers, but we appreciate that rates are moving higher because of a resilient economy and a strong job market. Given these conditions, we are optimistic about 2024 and Pulte Group's ability to continue delivering strong financial results. Now let me turn the call over to Bob for a review of our first quarter results. Bob?