Tri Pointe Homes, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the TriPoint Homes first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, David Lee, General Counsel. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Good morning and welcome to TriPoint Homes earnings conference call. Earlier this morning, the company released its financial results for the first quarter of 2025. Documents detailing these results, including a slide deck, are available at .tripointhomes.com through the investors link and under the events and presentation tab. Before the call begins, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made on this call, which are not historical facts, including statements concerning future financial and operating performance, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Discussion of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are detailed in the company SEC violence. Except this required by law, the company undertakes no duty to update these forward-looking statements. Additionally, reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call to the most comparable GAAP measures can be accessed through TriPoint's website and NSFCC violence. Posting the call today are Doug Bauer, the company's chief executive officer, Glenn Keeler, the company's chief financial officer, Tom Mitchell, the company's president and chief operating officer, and Linda Bamea, the company's executive vice president and chief marketing officer. With that out, I'll now turn the call over to Doug.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today as we report our results for the first quarter of 2025. Our teams executed at a high level, achieving strong results, demonstrating our ability to navigate the current political and economic volatility and its impact on the housing market. During the first quarter, we either met or exceeded all of our guidance. We delivered 1,040 new homes, an average sales price of 693,000, resulting in home sales revenue of 721 million. Home building gross margin remained strong in the first quarter at 23.9%, a 90 basis point increase compared to the same period last year. This margin underscores the resilience of our product offering, market positioning, and the successful execution of our premium lifestyle brand. Finally, net income was 64 million for the first quarter, resulting in diluted earnings per share of 70 cents. The spring selling season is off to a slower start than we normally experience with net new home orders of 1,238 for the quarter. On a monthly absorption rate of 2.8 per average selling community. While the longer term outlook for housing remains favorable with a continuing shortage of homes and strong demographics, it's clear that elevated uncertainty about the economy is weighing on consumer sentiment. International trade tensions and the new tariffs have emerged as unpredictable variables in the current environment. The headline news of tariffs and their potential inflationary effects has dampened buyer confidence. However, we do not believe tariffs will have a material impact on our cost structure in 2025. Our differentiated business strategy is to offer innovative designs and a premium brand experience with communities located in core locations in top markets. Although incentives can drive urgency for our home buyers, our margin and pace are typically driven by the location, product, and amenities we offer. Our teams are equipped with the right tools to meet our customer needs. We are utilizing a combination of targeted incentives and proactive mortgage financing solutions to help buyers achieve their monthly payment and home personalization goals. Our well-located communities close to job centers and great schools continue to attract a well-qualified home buyer. Home buyers and backlog financing through our mortgage company, TriPoint Connect, have an average annual household income of 219,000, average FICO score of 753, 79% loan to value, and average debt to income ratio of 40%. In light of current market conditions, we are proactively balancing risk mitigation with opportunity, leveraging the deep experience of our teams in navigating the local market environments. We are taking a disciplined and forward-looking approach to how we invest our capital, including land underwriting and structuring deals to better reflect current market dynamics. These actions position us to be selective and opportunistic while preserving flexibility and maximizing returns. Our balance sheet remains a key strength. We ended the quarter with total liquidity of 1.5 billion, including over 800 million of cash. With a home building debt to capital ratio of .6% and a net debt to net capital ratio of 3%, we are well positioned to support our long-term growth objectives and take advantage of opportunities we see in the markets. During the quarter, we repurchased 75 million of our common stock, reducing our shares outstanding by an additional 1.9%. As of the quarter end, we have 175 million of authorization remaining and continue to view our stock as an attractive use of capital, particularly at current market levels. On a -over-year basis, our book value for shares increased 14%, reflecting both earnings growth and disciplined capital deployment. Now I'd like to provide an update on our new market expansions. In Utah, two new communities are underway with openings in the third quarter of 2025. Additionally, our land pipeline is strong and we currently control approximately 500 lots. In Orlando, we have attracted a strong management team and land acquisition is progressing with 250 lots owned or controlled. We recently started grading our first community in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. In the Coast of Carolinas, we remain on track for initial deliveries of our new market expansions in 2026, supported by growing operations and strong alignment with our Charlotte team. Each of these markets represent a compelling long-term opportunity. We are executing with discipline, drawing on our internal expertise to ensure scalable growth. As a company, we are well positioned to build on our foundation of growth, innovation and operational excellence. Our strategy remains centered on driving revenue and returns through our premium lifestyle brand positioning, enhanced operational efficiency, proven capital deployment and an unwavering focus on customer satisfaction. We execute on these core areas of the business with discipline and consistency and we are confident this strategy will continue to deliver strong results. We remain encouraged on the long-term fundamentals of the housing market. The U.S. continues to face a significant housing shortage, a structural imbalance that reinforces the sustained need for new home development. Demographic tailwinds and the ongoing demand for housing supports a positive long-term outlook for the industry, despite the near-term volatility the market is experiencing. These underlying demand drivers provide a strong foundation for our business and validate the strategic investments we are making. As we continue to allocate capital towards the highest return opportunities, both in new markets and across our existing operations, we are confident in our ability to drive sustainable performance and create long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I will turn the call over to Glenn.

Glenn? Thanks, Doug, and good morning. I would like to highlight some of our results for the first quarter and then finish my remarks with our expectations and outlook for the second quarter and full year for 2025. First quarter produced strong financial results for the company. We delivered 1,040 homes, which was near the high end of our guidance. Home sales revenue was $721 million for the quarter with an average sales price of $693,000. Gross margins were .9% for the quarter, which exceeded the high end of our guidance range due to the mix of deliveries in the quarter. SGA expense of a percentage of home sales revenue was 14% and better than our guidance due to some savings in GNA and leverage from VNF at the higher end of the range on those deliveries and ASP. Finally, net income for the year was $64 million, or $0.70 per new share. Net new home orders in the first quarter were 1,238, an absorption pace of 2.8 homes per community per month. For some market color, our absorption pace in the west was 3.2 for the quarter, with the Inland Empire, Las Vegas, and Seattle markets showing stronger demand. In the central region, the overall absorption pace was 2.3 for the quarter. With increased supply of both new and resale homes, Dallas showed softer demand during the quarter, but we have seen some positive momentum recently in response to increased incentives. Austin and Houston experienced steady demand during the quarter, while the Colorado market continues to be challenging. Finally, in the east, absorption pace was 3.2 for the quarter, with our DC Metro and Raleigh divisions showing strong demand, while market conditions have cooled sharply. As Doug mentioned, we continued our approach of balancing pace and price and using targeted incentives to drive orders during the quarter. Current incentive levels for March orders averaged 7.3%. By comparison, incentives on deliveries in the first quarter were 6.1%. Our cancellation rate on gross orders during the first quarter remained low at 10%. During the first quarter, we invested $246 million in land and land development. We ended the quarter with over 35,000 total lots, 52% of which are controlled via options. During the first quarter, we opened 18 new communities and closed out of 16, ending the quarter with 147 active selling communities. We continue to anticipate opening 65 communities for the full year of 2025, and end the year with 150 to 160 active communities. Looking at the balance sheet and capital spend, we ended the quarter with approximately 1.5 billion of liquidity consisting of 813 million cash and 678 million available under our unsecured revolving credit facility. Our home building debt to capital ratio was 21.6%, and our home building net debt to net capital ratio was 3% to end the quarter. During the first quarter, we repurchased 2.3 million shares for an aggregate dollar spend of 75 million. We currently have 175 million available on our share repurchase authorization and anticipate continuing to be active buyers of our stock in the second quarter. Now I'd like to summarize our outlook for the second quarter and full year of 2025. For the second quarter, we anticipate delivering between 1,100 and 1,200 homes at an average sales price between 680,000 and 690,000. We expect home building gross margin percentage to be in the range of .5% to 22.5%. The decrease in gross margin sequentially from the first quarter is the result of increased incentives and the community mix as we close out of higher margin community. We expect our SG&A expense ratio to be in the range of .5% to 13.5%. And we estimate our effective tax rate for the second quarter to be approximately 27%. For the full year, we are updating our guidance to a lower range of deliveries based on the slower market conditions we have experienced so far this year. We now anticipate delivering between 5,000 to 5,500 homes for the full year with an average sales price between 665,000 and 675,000. We continue to expect our full year home building gross margin to be in the range of .5% to 22%. Finally, we anticipate our SG&A expense ratio to be in the range of .5% to 12.5%. And we estimate our effective tax rate for the full year to be approximately 27%. With that, I will now turn the call back over

to Doug for some closing remarks. Thanks, Glenn. In closing, I want to express my sincere gratitude to the entire TriPoint team. Your dedication, talent, and hard work are the driving force behind our results. Thanks to your collective efforts, TriPoint has once again been named to the Fortune 100 best companies to work for in 2025. This recognition speaks volumes about the culture of excellence that we built together and is something we should all be proud of. As a premium lifestyle brand, our ability to innovate and differentiate in the market is powered by this exceptional team. Thank you for your continued commitment and belief in our mission. With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator for any questions. Thank you.

At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. We ask that analysts limit themselves to one question and a follow-up so that others may have an opportunity to ask questions. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handsets before pressing the star key. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Stephen Kim with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, thanks very much, guys. I appreciate all the color as usual. You know, I thought you performed strongly in a tough environment. But I wanted to talk a little bit about your absorptions. Your absorptions were below 3, you know, sales per community in 1Q. And absorptions are almost never higher for the year than they are in your 1Q. So I'm curious, you know, you've said before that you're sort of targeting 3 absorptions this year, 3 to 4 on the longer-term basis. And I'm wondering, is that still the case for you? And, you know, are you willing and able to recalibrate that targeted pace, you know, both in the near term as well as in the long term?

Yeah, Stephen, this is Doug. A couple things there. I mean, as we noted, you know, generally speaking, the spring selling season has been off to a slower start than what we've normally experienced. You know, as far as trends, absorption was 2.5 in January, 2.9 in February, 3.1 in March. It's got a little choppier. I think a few other companies have noted the same choppiness in the market. So, you know, originally we were targeting around 3 for the year. I think 2, 5 to 3 seems more appropriate. You know, this business is, we just happen to sell the most expensive retail good in the U.S. And it requires a lot of confidence. And the consumer has definitely been impacted by what's going on across the country. So, you know, without, we see good job numbers. And we see strong job growth. And frankly, we see a lot of strong buyers. I would, if I gave the market a letter grade, I don't know, Tom, what you would say, but I'd say it's about a C to a C plus. But I'm very happy with the results in light of the market conditions. We're doing a great job. And we're teed up as we go into 26 with some strong community account growth. So, you know, it's a choppy time, Stephen.

Okay. Yeah, Farah. I guess my question was really, though, how long would you be willing to operate, you know, below what you had previously said was your targeted absorption range? Is this sort of like a thing that you can do kind of like holding your breath underwater? You can do it for a pre-order time or is it able to be more permanent?

Yeah, no, we continue to balance price and pace on a community by community basis to drive the best results. You know, our land is well located, hard to replace. So we feel our current approach will create the best value. And we don't feel that the best return will be necessary. You won't get the best return by increasing incentives. It doesn't drive incremental volume in our mind. So, you know, we're going to stay at that steady kind of, you know, basis of pace and price as we go forward. Okay. That's helpful.

What we're saying is, you know, in that two and a half to three pace, it works for us. And we've proven that we're going to be able to get the returns and the profitability we desire.

Yeah, that's perfect. That's, I think that's really good to hear. The second question is a little bit more of a technical one, I guess, for Glenn. You had indicated that your, well, your gross margin guide for 2Q is only 50 basis points lower than what you would initially guide it for 1Q. You know, you blew your 1Q gross margin guide out of the water, right? But your 2Q guide is only 50 basis points lower than the range that you would give it for 1Q initially. You had also said that incentives on your orders were 120 basis points higher than the incentives on deliveries. And so my question basically is, you know, how do we reconcile the 120 basis points more incentives with the only 50 basis points lower gross margin guide? And two potential answers come to mind. One is that the margin impact of 100 basis points or 120 basis points, in this case, of incentives isn't 120 basis point hit to the margin, because maybe you're giving different kinds of incentives. Or you're just including, you included a lot of conservativism in your initial 1Q guide and you're using less conservativism in the 2Q guide. And I'm wondering, you know, what is the reason basically the gap between the 50 and the 120?

Yeah, good question, Stephen. And it really is, and this isn't a very fun answer, but it really is mixed. So when you look at kind of the mix of communities where we're losing

some deliveries that we got in our original guidance, and then you look at the divisions that are doing well, those tend to be the, you know, higher margin divisions. And so some of that is just mix of how that worked out in the quarter. Those incentives over the long term, they do impact margin by that same amount. You know, if you're taking a 1% incentive up the top price, it's going to impact your margin by that. So it is one point, you know, all our incentives hit revenue. Stephen, I know you've asked that before, and that's where our incentives go. So it is a margin hit, but it really is just mix for us and the mix in the quarter that's driving that.

I would have thought that maybe there are some incentives that, you know, maybe like upgrading materials or whatever that carry a lower gross margin hit than, you know, 100%. Well, that's true. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's true. Stephen, this is Linda. Absolutely. Of that .5% incentives in the first quarter orders, we use .3% of the incentives in our design studio where our gross margins are over 40%. So certainly that is a better use of incentives from a gross margin perspective. And it also is highly desirable to our customers who want to personalize their home.

Yeah, I thought you were asking is some incentives kind of in SG&A, which I know some builders put things down there.

But yes,

to Linda's

point, if that's what you're asking, that is correct. OK. All right, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Our next

question comes from Trevor Allison with Wolf Research. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I want to follow up on Steve's question on the pace and price balance there. I appreciate it's been a slow start to spring selling season across the industry. So two and a half to three makes more sense here. If you were to see demand flow further, what would be the reaction in that case? Would you potentially let your absorption drift even further below two and a half? Or do you view that more as a floor in which you want to operate in the current environment? And therefore, if demand would be softer here, you would at that point lean more back into incentives to not drift further below the two and a half level.

In terms of this, Doug, I would say that two and a half is somewhat of a floor. Again, our locations are in what I call core a location. So it's a little bit of patience and perseverance during these choppy times. But I would call that two and a half a floor and we might have to turn up the dial a little bit more on incentives. You know, 100 percent of nothing is nothing. So it's like I always joke with people. So, you know, we still got to turn and move homes. But, you know, as I mentioned earlier, you know, it's not great. It's not bad. It's just a choppy market. And before you know it, we'll all get through this. And, you know, we're really looking out the next two, three, four, five years into a very healthy situation for the homebuilders because of the unmet needs there. So hopefully that answers your question. Hey, Trevor, one thing I'd add to

that is, you know, we really feel that the underlying demand is still in the marketplace. We're seeing that consistently throughout all of our communities and our markets. And, you know, the buyer has just hit the pause button. There's a lack of clarity, certainly a lack of consumer confidence, and they're confused. But fundamentally, I think the demand is there. And so some of that confusion clears up. We do see a return to better absorptions.

Yeah, and that's actually a great segue to the next question I was going to ask was just on April trends, perhaps how they compare to March trends. Have you seen an improvement here in the back half of the month as we start to get further away from April 2nd? And then also, have you seen any differences in demand trends by price point, thinking those with more wealth in the stock market? Have you seen any difference in their demand for them versus more of the first time buyer? Thanks.

Well, as I mentioned, Trevor, absorption pace was 2.5 in January, 2.9 in February, 3.1 in March. It's gotten a little choppy in April with all the uncertainties that are in the economy right now. Linda, you might be able to talk about some of the different price points on absorption.

Yes, absolutely. We are still seeing more strength relatively, Trevor, in the second move up. In the first quarter, we saw a good pace there in the second move up at 3.2. Active adult was at 3.4. So certainly those segments are outperforming premium entry level. And we would expect that to continue where we see buyers who have more equity in their existing homes. They do not need as much help in financing. And more of them will come off the sidelines as they gain more confidence in the direction of the economy, as Tom mentioned.

It makes a lot of sense. Thank you all for all the color and good luck moving forward. Thanks.

Our next question comes from Mike Dahl with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks for taking my questions and thanks for the candor. I want to follow up on the incentives and make sure we heard correctly the 7.3%. Was that on March orders or was that the average for the March quarter? And maybe just give us a sense of where that stands as we get closer to the end of April.

Yeah, so it was 7.3

on March, the month of March orders, and that's fairly consistent with where April has been trending as well.

Got it. Okay. When I look at the margin guidance, understanding their impacts, pros and cons of QQ, let's say you hit the midpoint of your QQ guide, you'll have delivered a 23% gross margin and you're guiding 20.5 to 22. I mean, the simple math is that you'd have to be 20% or below in the back half just to get down to the midpoint of that full year. And so I guess the question is kind of what are the moving pieces? That's still a pretty material drop off in the back half. Are you assuming incremental incentives? Is it lot costs? What walk us through that or whether or not there's just still some conservatism there?

Yeah, Mike. So the good question and your math is correct

that the midpoint of the full year guidance implies a 20% gross margin in the back half of the year. And it's similar to what we said in the first call. Some of it is lot costs, right? You have a lot of communities rolling off. We closed out at 16 communities in the first quarter. There's going to be more close outs as we move through the year. And those are older communities that benefited from price appreciation and higher margins. And then incentives do play a role, right? I mean, incentives were higher in the first quarter than we originally projected by, I would say, a point. We were probably more in the 6% range and we exited at the 7% range.

So

incentives are playing a role

in that as well.

But are you assuming there's incremental incentive pressure versus the 7.3 or full impact of that 7.3 coming in? No, and the midpoint of our guide assumes

that that 7% carries through the

rest of the year. Okay, thank you.

Our next question comes from Alan Ratner with Zelman and Associates. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for all the details so far. And, you know, nice performance in a tough market. So I know it's challenging out there. First question on SG&A. So if I look at the guide, you know, for the year, roughly 12%, that's going to be running about 100, 150 basis points above kind of where you were pre-COVID, you know, up about 300 dips from the near-term low in 22. I'm curious, you know, what impact, if any, is coming from costs in your new market expansion maybe and not yet seeing the revenue associated with those markets versus how much of that increases being driven just by broader inflation in employment costs and other ancillary things?

Yeah, that's a good question, Alan. This is Glenn. It definitely is, you know, there's some impact to the new expansion divisions, right? We have three new divisions that we are incurring costs in that don't have any associated revenue to it. So that does have an impact. But there has been general inflation if you're comparing it to COVID levels. Obviously, there's been wage inflation and other inflation pressures on the G&A line. So it is a combination of both of those. And then obviously, if you're comparing this year to last year, it's the lower revenue and less leverage on those fixed costs that is tracking that out.

So would the goal longer term to be, you know, to kind of get back to where you were pre-pandemic in that kind of 10, .5% range once these new markets begin generating revenue?

That's exactly right, Alan. That is the goal once we get, you know, those markets to scale in the next, you know, three to five years. You know, that's a good goal for us.

Yeah, I would add, Alan, this is Doug. You know, we are, we've got a pretty good playbook at the expansion divisions. Yeah, it costs you a little bit of money in G&A. But the way I look at it is I'd rather spend that money building the right team with the right people. We believe those three markets have excellent potential for our premium lifestyle brand than going out and paying, you know, X for some builder that you find you put a bunch of goodwill on your balance sheet and you're writing that off. So we look at this business in five-year increments in the next three to five years for those three expansion divisions. Yeah, it costs you a little bit of money, but it's going to pan out very well.

Yeah, my second question, Doug, was kind of on that topic in the new markets, because I would imagine while it's probably not fun to be operating in a market like we're in today, on the other hand, if you are in the position to be entering new markets, I would imagine there are some opportunities that could come about, whether it's, you know, good people that maybe are let go from other competitors, land deals that are kind of walked away from. So I'm just curious, you know, are you seeing any of those opportunities yet in your newer markets or do you anticipate those to unfold in the next few months? And if so, is there an opportunity maybe to accelerate those growth plans in those new markets?

No, you're spot on. And I would agree with everything you said. I was talking to some of our expansion divisions yesterday and there's definitely, it's a good time to, using a funny basketball analogy, hang around the hoop, because there's going to be some rebounds and retrains that are going to happen. And, you know, we're still focused on main and main A locations. And even in some of our existing markets, we've seen some of that activity as well. But we're being very disciplined, being very smart in our underwriting. We're going to tend to be on the higher end of the side of underwriting right now because there's a lot of uncertainty on how all this tariff activity and economic uncertainty lasts, as you know, and we all know. But everything you said is exactly playing in our favor for these expansion divisions. And frankly, you know, we don't have a gun to our head to do stupid deals. We can be very smart with those divisions and grow very smartly. So that's the other benefit we have in Orlando, the Coastal Carolinas, and Utah. The

other thing, Alan, it's important to remember what you let off with. A big benefit that we've seen in all those expansion markets is the talent of people. We've been able to really attract the right people to build our teams probably faster than we normally would have been able to do so. So we're really encouraged about that.

Great. I appreciate the thoughts and good luck. Thanks.

Our next question comes from Ken Zener with Seaport Research Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, everybody.

Good morning again. Just checking on my phone service. It's

working. It's Verizon. All right. So the narrative was we were undersupplied, not the long term stuff, but like 2022, right? 2023. And now, according to census data for new homes for sale, we're still very high outside of the 05 2011 period. Yet, your inventory units are down 23% year over year. Can you kind of comment on like this national narrative we're seeing in contrast to, you know, your data and some of the other public builder data where we're down substantially year over year? Would you hear that narrative? How do you guys resolve that in the boardroom? Like, why do you think that's happening? Is it all private? Is it all in Michigan where people don't build that much?

Well, I think for us, if you're saying year over year inventory down, I

think it just shows how quick builders can pivot and be smart with starts and, you know, manage their inventory levels. You know, compared to, you know, some of that national data, we don't look at it that closely from, you know, our own portfolio. We kind of look at our specific markets and what we think is right for each one of our communities and markets. So, you know, that's how we manage it.

I think it adds, Ken, I mean, it's a lot of apples and oranges. I don't think there's a national narrative. I mean, you've got the larger public home building companies. That's a different business model than little tri-point sitting here. I mean, it's a production machine that needs to produce homes every quarter on an even flow basis, basically. So, you know, we're building on A locations, main and main, and we're going to continue that focus in that premium lifestyle brand, focusing in on providing a great customer experience that will increase our brand, not only in our existing markets, but in others. So, how I don't get too lathered up about the national narrative and stay focused. This is still a very local business. And,

Ken, you know, we run it on a very balanced approach. You know, as you look at our move-in ready homes and completed inventory, it's really at the historically acceptable levels for us. You know, overall, with our spec homes, about 12 per community right now, we've got a little bit under three completed inventory per community. And then as we look at starts, we're balancing that to our absorption pace. And, you know, year over year, we're down a little bit, about 20 percent in our Q1 starts, but that's appropriate given the other inventory levels that we're targeting and driving our business towards.

Right. And then appreciate your guys' thoughtful responses. So, do you think like your inventory units are basically going to be down a similar amount to what we're facing right now when we exit the year, given your start and closing assumptions?

I would think so. I mean, obviously, it will depend on how absorption flows in the back half of the year and where we're seeing the overall market. I think in our company, and we actually were just talking about this yesterday with our management team, we have the ability to flex up starts if we see the upside in demand and we have the ability to moderate starts. So, I think we have a nimble engine here to be able to react to the market.

Right. And then, you know, what I find really interesting about your guys, the debt that you're still incurring. So, your gross margins, and I usually like to look at interest expense, although fully loaded, but I mean, you're about 27 percent, which would be quite appealing to many people. But for the fact you have 320 bits of interest drag, can you comment on the given that you paid off that 900 million ish debt? How long is it going to take for us to see that? You know, it's 3.2 percent this quarter, 3.3 last year. Like, when are we going to start to see that benefiting? How does that fully loaded gross margin? And to compare to what you see is your choices around the interest you're amortizing. If you had a 27 percent gross margin, which you do, that's interest, maybe you'd be more flexible. You know, how quick is that interest going down and how does that affect your thinking around slashing inventory to get to your lower leverage levels today?

I don't know if it

influences our inventory levels, but you will see that interest level go down as we go through this year, and then you'll see the bigger benefit into next year because it will depend on how quickly we, you know, it will depend on absorption and how quickly we move inventory that already has capitalized inventory into it. That's why it's hard to give a specific answer because it will depend on how that old inventory rolls out. But you will see with our lower debt levels that flush through over the next 18 months.

I mean, the thing is, this is why I ask Glenn and Doug Tom obviously chimed in because like you're 27, you know, if you're saying 20 in the back half, fully loaded with interest, you know, that's still 23 percent. And if you just flush out those homes that have the interest expense and reset to your current level, that's actually kind of appealing. You know, as long as you're holding on to that stuff, it's hard to, you know, flush it out.

Anyways, just interesting. Thank you guys. Thanks, Ken.

Our next question comes from Jay McEmiss with Wedbush Security. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, everyone. If you kind of thought on that question, I was going to ask where you're seeing and especially the markets you called out is not performing well. Is that a buyer issue or is that more of a competition issue from resales or too many new home sales? Kind of, I think, kind of in line with what Ken was asking.

Well, I mean, we're just, Doug, we're seeing strength in first quarter Raleigh, Seattle on the West Coast and the East Coast, D.C., actually Raleigh on the East Coast, too. The more challenging markets in the first quarter were Colorado, DFW, and Charlotte. And to me, it's more about buyer profile and, you know, a very anxious buyer profile than competitive factor. Again, in our locations typically don't run into as many of the big production mentalities that are going to be pushing incentives to drive volume. So it's more of a buyer mentality.

And where do you think your split was between first time versus the other active adult and move up in the quarter? Are you talking absorption,

Jay?

When they just get on closings and then maybe how that's trending for orders at least thus far in 2Q?

Yeah, on deliveries for Q1, Jay, our entry level was about 41% and combined move up was about 53%. And on orders, it was pretty much about the exact same.

Great. And then last question. It looks like you did nudge up the full year average price a little bit. Is that just from 1Q or do you guys think you're going to have a little richer mix as you go through the rest of the year?

It's just a richer mix. So it's a little bit more

heavy weighted towards the West in the mix. Okay, great. Thanks for taking my question. Thanks, Jay.

There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Doug Bauer for closing comments.

Well, thank you for joining us today and we look forward to chatting with all of you in July. Have a great week and weekend. Thank you.

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