Good afternoon, and welcome to the Beezer Homes Earnings Conference Call for the first quarter ended December 31st, 2025. Today's call is being recorded, and a replay will be available on the company's website later today. In addition, PowerPoint slides intended to accompany this call are available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.beezer.com. At this point, I will turn the call over to David Goldberg, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Beezer Homes Conference Call discussing our results for the first quarter of Fiscal 26. Joining me today is Alan Merrill, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. After our prepared commentary, we will open up the line and Alan and I will be happy to take your questions. Before we begin, you should be aware that during this call we will be making forward-looking statements. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors described in our SEC filings, which may cause actual results to differ materially from our projections. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date this statement is made. We do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is simply not possible to predict all such factors. I will now turn the call over to Alan.

Thank you, Dave, and thank you for joining us on our call this afternoon. We began fiscal 26 in a stubbornly soft demand environment, but stayed focused on actions within our control that can drive timely and measurable progress toward our 2026 and multi-year Our efforts were concentrated on proving the value of our differentiation, reducing direct construction costs, and enhancing balance sheet efficiency. The December quarter is always our time to make up for the short-term, which is certainly warranted. We have paths to grow both full years. Since mid-December, we've seen better traffic and buyer engagement, which has been in line with the prior year that will drive to accelerate at a time. On sales, we're not just hoping market conditions continue to improve, we're also benefiting from the new branding and lead generation efforts we launched in the fall. The focus of our Enjoy the Great Indoors, Comfortable and Healthier Home, and dramatically lower utility bills. This is a message other builders can't deliver, and it amounts to thousands of dollars in savings per year for most of us. So extending our leadership in utility savings by introducing solar included homes in many communities. This makes the full potential of zero energy ready homes an easy reality for our buyers. No complicated sizing decisions, no cumbersome leases or guessing at payback periods. From day one, our solar included homes reduce monthly utility bills to little more than a basic service charge. Now, there are two keys for making solar work for homeowners without tax credits or incentives. First, you must significantly reduce a home's energy consumption in order to shrink the size of the system that have existed in residential solar business models. Working with our partners, we've been able to reduce installation costs from more than four dollars per kilowatt hour to less than two dollars, and we know we can drive it even It has been strong, and margins in our fully solar communities are among the very best in the company. This is exactly the kind of offering that separates us from other builders in meeting the affordability challenge. We made out a series of specific catalysts for about 300 basis points of margin expansion between the first quarter and year-end, and these remain firmly. We've reduced labor and material construction costs by more than $10,000 per home, or nearly 200 basis points, which should be reflected in our third and fourth quarter results. Another hundred basis points of margin expansion from the combination of positive mixed shifts within our existing communities and the increase in contributions of new communities. These newer communities, which we have defined as those that started selling in or after April 2025, were just over 10% of first quarter revenue, but are projected to account for about 50% of fourth quarter revenue. ASPs and margins on sales in these communities are both substantially above existing communities. Finally, we're seeing a modest shift toward to-be-built sales so far this year, which if sustained would be another margin catalyst. Turning to capital allocation, our strategy remains disciplined and aligned with our multi-year goals. Within our portfolio, we continue to sell non-strategic assets in sub-markets that no longer match our differentiated product strategy or were intended for sale when we bought them. We now expect around $150 million in proceeds, increasing balance sheet efficiency and for return uses, particularly share repurchases. During the first quarter, we bought back $15 million of stock, bringing our trailing 12-month total to 7% of our shares. We have $72 million remaining on our share repurchase authorization, and we expect a fully executed vision above book value to fund share buybacks below book value is obviously a high lens of achieving our multi-year goals for growth, deleveraging, and book value. 68 communities at quarter end and 23,500 active lots under control, greater than 200 community count goal by the end of fiscal 27, even accounting for the impact of our planned asset sales, deleveraging to the low 30% range by the end of fiscal 27. With our plan to accelerate share repurchase activity, however, net leverage is likely to be flat year-over-year, at or just under 40%, have a double-digit CAGR, and book value per share through the end of fiscal 27 through both profitability and $72 million to share repurchases through the rest of this year will certainly drive book value growth, profitability and return differentiated product strategy, reducing labor and material costs.

During the first quarter, 63 homes with a pace of 1.5 sales per community per month. While part of this weakness reflected a continued tough market, we also chose not to chase volume, as many of our peers discounted homes into their year-end. The account continued to grow, reaching 167 up 4% year-over-year. Our home building revenue was $359.7 million, with 700 homes closed at an average selling price of $514,000. Home building gross margin was reported at 14 percent, though this included a litigation-related charge arising from an attached product community that began in 2014. Excluding the charge, which represented about 180 basis points, our home building gross margin would have been 15.8 percent in line with our guidance. Looking at our mix, specs represented 70 percent of our closings, but only 61 percent of our sales. If the trend toward more to-be-built homes continues, it would add to margins in the back half of the year. SG&A was $65 million in line with our expectations. Taxes represented a $1.5 million expense despite our pre-tax loss. This reflected our projected annual effective tax rate applied to our quarterly results. All told, first quarter adjusted EBITDA was negative $11.2 million and an eluded loss per share was $1.13, which again included a $6.4 million pre-tax or $0.23 per share impact on litigation-related charge. Now let's walk through our second quarter at comparable to last year. We expect to finish Q2 with about 165 active communities, another quarter with a year-over-year increase. We anticipate closing about 800 homes with an ASP around $520,000 to $525,000. Adjusted home building gross margin should be relatively flat sequentially, excluding the impact of a litigation-related charge. SG&A total dollar spend should be about flat versus the prior year quarter. From the sale perspective, we expect to generate about $30 million of revenue. This should result in total adjusted EBITDA of around $5 million, including gains from land sales. Interest amortized as a percent of home building revenue should be about 3%. Taxes are projected to be an expense of approximately $1 million, similar to Q1. This should result in a net loss of about 75 cents per diluted share. Depending on the prices paid for repurchased shares, we ought to be able to offset most, if not all, of the loss in book value per share by quarter end. We've established the goal of generating growth in EBITDA for the full year. While the sales miss and our seasonally slowest first quarter certainly didn't help, we are still working to achieve this goal, excluding the impact of the litigation related charge. Operationally, here's what needs to happen in the back half of the year. I'll start with the factors where we have higher visibility and more control of our The average selling price will need to reach $565,000 in the second half, which is in line with our current backlog ASP propelled by our newer communities. Second, the direct cost actions and positive mixed shifts Alan outlined will need to materialize and drive three points of adjusted home building gross margin expansion by the fourth quarter. Third, we need to keep growth in SG&A under $25 million for the full year. We'll need to execute the $150 million of land sales we've discussed. We have very good visibility on these transactions and anticipate they will generate a double-digit EBITDA margin in the aggregate. There are two other factors that will determine whether we can achieve EBITDA growth, both of which depend on market conditions and competitive activity. Incentives will need to remain consistent with current levels for each community type. We deliver a sales pace above 2.5 in Q3 and Q4 on a gradually increasing community count. Admittedly, we have not achieved this pace in the last two years, but it's a level well below historical trends. It's not going to be easy, but we do have a path to achieving EBITDA growth this year. Independent of whether we reach our EBITDA growth goal in 2026, we still expect to grow book value per share at year end by 5% to 10% as we execute the remaining $72 million of our buyback authorization. At current prices, capacity represents more than 10% of the company, total buyback to nearly 20% over an 18-month period. Because of the strength of our land position, we expect to do this and still finish fiscal 26 with a net leverage at or below 40%. Focus on maintaining a strong balance sheet. At quarter end, we had more than $340 million of total liquidity, including $121 million of unrestricted cash and $222 million of revolver availability and no maturities until October 2027. As we've said, net leverage will be flat this year as we balance our allocation of capital against our multi-year goals. During the first quarter, we spent $181 million on land acquisition and development and generated $3 million in land sale proceeds. If controlled lot position was approximately $23,500 with 61% of our lots under option contracts. Over the last several years, we built a very strong land position, allowing us to maintain our growth posture even while selling non-strategic assets. We anticipate our land sales will be above book value in the aggregate, demonstrating that even if assets that no longer fit our strategy are worth more than what we paid for them. With that, I'm not going to call back over now.

Two key takeaways, 26 and we would have liked. It's a small piece of the picture and we still have a path to full-year EBITDA growth. We're seeing green shoots for the spring selling season, and we've got very good visibility on margin catalysts, ASP growth, and profitable land sales into the back half of the year. Whether we're able to achieve our goal will depend on stability and normalization in market conditions, but we're working very hard to make it happen. We're fully committed to driving book value per share growth this year, independent of EBITDA growth. to accelerate shareholder purchases, we know we can create significant shareholder value. Let me just finish by thanking our team for their ongoing efforts to create value for our customers, partners, shareholders, and, of course, each other. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator to take us into Q&A.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please unmute your phone, press star 1, and record your name and company clearly when prompted. If you need to withdraw your question, press star 2. Again, to ask a question, please press star 1. It will take a few moments for questions to come through. Please stand by. Our first question is from Alex Riegel of Texas Capital Securities. Your line is open.

Good evening, gentlemen. Hey, Alex. Is your repurchase plan contingent on the timing of the $150 million profitable land

I mean, not really, Alex. I mean, obviously, we're not going to do it all at once. We talked about that we would be over the timing of the year, but it's not contingent on specifically the timing of the land.

And then generally speaking, sort of what is that gross margin spread between a build to order versus a spec home?

Gosh, it depends widely, but it has always been in the 4% or 5% range, and I would say that's probably gotten a little wider in the last year. I don't have the exact percentage because, of course, you're comparing apples and oranges between geographies and communities, but it's 400 or 500 plus.

And then lastly, as it relates to sort of the favorable commentary about traffic traffic in kind of the latter half of December and January, do you see there, is that kind of solely based upon interest rates sort of pulling back a little bit here or is it just because of a better mix, what are some of the reasons that you believe are driving that improved traffic?

Well, I think there are a couple of things going on. The very last slide in the appendix of our slides is a chart that we've shown for years, which is the affordability math, looking at monthly mortgage payments as a percentage of income. And what's been happening slowly, I mean, imperceptibly looked at day to day, but it's very obvious when you look at it over years, is rates have moved down a little bit. Home prices have stabilized or on a net basis have come down. Incomes have kept moving forward. So, we're a lot closer to that low 20% affordability band that has characterized really healthy housing demand. So I think that we shouldn't overlook that is going on in the background, and we can get excited about rates doing this or that on a day-to-day basis, but the trend that has been underway over the last year has been very positive in improving affordability. It's still elevated. And I think the second part is just what you said, is we go from 10% of our revenue in the first quarter to 50% of our revenue in our newest communities, just the demand And we talked about it before we launched them. We've talked about it since we've launched them. We've seen very good traction with communities that were purpose built with our super high efficiency, our zero energy ready homes, and an increasing share with solar included. A combination of things I think we're doing in this improving affordability backdrop is I think what's contributing to what we've seen from a traffic and sales progression over the last month.

Very helpful. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Alex.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Julio Ramiro of Sidoti & Company. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon. On your introduction of solar-included homes, when do you expect those homes to begin to flow through orders and closings and in any color you can provide and how accretive those homes are expected to be to either sales or profitability.

Well, right now they're not a huge percentage of our closings, but we've got a couple of markets and I'd highlight Las Vegas. There is some risk, I'll be wrong, by a detached product in Las Vegas for the last couple of And that's really where we've been able to get after the supply chain and the installation protocols and sort of wring out what I call some of the excesses from the traditional solar business models. We've expanded that into Phoenix, and of course we've got our big greenhouse community here in Georgia, the largest solar included community in the state. We've got it in a very big community in South Carolina that we're launching next month. So I think we're trending toward 20% of our business at the end of the year will be in solar included communities, but it's in our sales and closings now. Now, in terms of the mix, all I would say is that solar, and not just the average, but sample size, that I think we start getting into basis points and it could get dangerous, but this has helped. Now, I wanted this, and I am, I want to be a little cautious about the fact that this is also a function, the adoption of this is going to relate to utility providers and rooftop solar. What we've seen in the last year or two, the municipalities and with some public power companies, where electricity demand has surged, and we've all heard about data centers, and as that's happened, it has changed the dialogue with these utility providers, where all of a sudden what had looked like competition becomes a little bit of a savior for them. Because now they have an opportunity for new communities to be much more self-sufficient or closer to self-sufficient, which takes some of the pressure off of the demands that they're experiencing. Now, we all know that the rate of growth in electricity demand is not evenly spread, but in markets where you're seeing significant growth in demands for power, and I would point out Western markets, including Arizona, we have definitely benefited from and are changing the conversation with utility providers. Because that's one of the bottlenecks, right? They have to be willing, and they're not just net metering things. We don't really worry about net metering, but what are the hookup charges? What are the barriers to getting your permits? And I think we are finding a more and more receptive environment, but it isn't going to be everything all at once.

Very helpful. And you noted that your 2B-built mix was trending favorably in 1Q orders relative to the mix in your closings. Can you talk about the drivers of that positive mix trend and, you know, if that's expected to continue trending towards 2B?

I think, A, it has to do with some of our newer communities that are drawing a lot of attention. I also think the fact that inventory is coming down is creating some buyers who are willing to wait because it's not everything about, you know, get me the house immediately. I think it's probably a combination of those two factors more than anything else.

Very good. I'll pass it on. Thanks.

Thank you. The next question comes from Natalie Kulisekria of Zellman & Associates. Your line is open.

Hey, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. So last quarter, you mentioned that you're looking at a closing growth of 5% to 10% for fiscal 2026, and pardon me if I missed this on the call, but how exactly are you looking at it now? Are you still expecting to grow closings this year, and if so, you know, what does it depend

Yeah, you know, Natalie, what I would say is obviously some of it will depend on what happens in the selling season and what happens in the next 90 days, but our focus is really about our path to executing growth in EBITDA and book value per share and we know that we have a path to go do so and as I said in my comments increase land sales and a little okay thank you um and I guess my next just one quick follow up

oh I'm just trying to figure out what happened in the first quarter was it particular markets that were underperforming or did you just see weakness across all your divisions as a whole so we had two or three

divisions where sales pace was up in the first quarter, but it means we had a dozen or more that sales pace was flatter down. So it was pretty broad-based. But I want to put it in a little bit of context. You know, we're probably between 100 and 150 sales, less than one home per community over the course of the quarter. The other thing I said about a PAP, 15%, 3% of our total orders for the year. And we know that. We know this every December in particular. we get into this dynamic where people are discounting like crazy to hit their fiscal year end goals. And I understand it. But this was a year where we just decided this was not the time to be particularly aggressive and go toe to toe. And honestly, based on how the December traffic and the sales environment has changed, I'm pretty glad we didn't go ultra low in December to try and get an extra hundred sales because the repercussion across across communities over the balance of the year would have been pretty significant.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, if you have a question, please unmute your phone and press star 1. Please record your name and company when prompted. Our next question comes from Tyler Vittori of Oppenheimer and Company. Your line is open.

Hey. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to circle back on the guide and really the commentary about sales pace in particular in the back half in terms of the two and a half there. Do you think that's achievable in the current backdrop? Do you think there needs to be a little bit of an improvement in the macro to hit that and just kind of remind us what gives you confidence that there's going to be this ramp in the second half of the year versus the first half?

Well, look, Tyler, we certainly think it's achievable. I mean, Alan kind of talked about what was happening in January and late December and improving buyer engagement, seeing more traffic, the receptivity to our enjoying the great outdoors messaging. Is it what we did in 24 and 25? No. You're absolutely correct. It would be the last years haven't shown that. But if you look at historical trends or so, we think in a more normalized market with inventory levels coming down some improvement in buyer demand that we've seen already into January, if that persists it certainly is an achievable level. And my follow-up, thinking about the gross margin

progression here as your flat quarter over quarter Q2 versus Q1, and Q1 was a little short of what you had guided to previously. So just talk a little bit about the shortfall in Q1 and the moving pieces sequentially into Q2, and then just remind us and help us think about the progression in terms of the ramp and gross margin in the back half. So let's talk about it. First,

I don't mean to pick a bone, but I would tell you we said we'd be about 16.8 – we'd be at 16%, excuse me, extra litigation charge it was 15.8, so it feels pretty close to about 16. In terms of Q, I mean online, they're delivering more homes, the visibility is due in our new So it's very similar to what we said last year, last quarter, excuse me, last quarter, about the 300 basis points. We still have good visibility into it. We obviously aren't trying to make a prediction on incentives of what happens in the back past of the year, but if incentives on light products stay the same.

And then last one for me, in terms of some of these newer communities, 10% of the of revenue in Q1. Just remind us the ASP or margin premium on those communities compared with the other 90% of revenue that was coming through in Q1.

Well, you're starting to see it in the backlog ASP. I think backlog ASP is around 560 and that backlog are to be built from those newer communities. So that's giving you a flavor for what is going to happen to ASP in the back half of the year as those newer communities represent 50% or more of our revenue. On the margin progression, it's a couple hundred basis points. I mean, it is definitely material, and so moving from 10% to 50% on picking up that kind of margin lift in addition to what we're seeing on the direct cost side, that's where

our confidence in the movement of new versus existing.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rohit Seth of Be Reilly Securities. Your line is open.

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. Just on the litigation expense, was that a one-time charge or is it ongoing?

In the remarks, it had to do with the community that we started at construction in 2014. It's not our current product, it's not a repeating charge, it is a...

Okay. And where do you guys stand now on incentives? And what was the change into the?

Yeah, we don't give the exact incentive numbers out. It's not going to be published, but I think it's safe to say that the margin degradation that you saw from Q4 to Q1 was in part because of higher incentives around MITS.

Okay. And with the industry, you know, looking at clear inventory in the December quarter, you guys opted not to go that route, and how is your inventory positioning heading into the new year?

It's very healthy. We've got a combined spec position of in the sixes per community down from in the sevens, so it's a little bit lighter like everybody else's. The finished inventory, I think, is in great spot for the spring selling season, so it's lower, but I think it gives us an opportunity. We really focus on what our production universe is as we think about tracking down profitability And I think the combination of better cycle times and the inventory position we have today give us the unit inventory that – or the unit universe that can drive the EBITDA growth path that we described.

Okay. And if demand were to snap back, what are your cycle times now? Are you guys well-positioned to ramp back up pretty quickly?

Yeah. In the first quarter, we added a little over two calendar weeks or reduced our cycle time by about two calendar weeks. And I think in the starts in this next quarter, we'll get a little bit more. And when I think about that year over year, I really think about what's the last day of our fiscal year that we can sell a to-be-built home and still get it started and closed by the end of our fiscal year. And gosh, in the middle of COVID, that cutoff day was like in January. We're pushing it further out as our markets now, we're in April or May, right? That's the way to think about it, but it's like adding two weeks to your fiscal year if you compress cycle time by two weeks because you've got the opportunity for that additional period to make those sales that you can get started and closed.

Okay. And then final question, you know, with the government talking about intervening in the housing market, for you guys and your customers, what do you think would be more impactful? Something on the rate side or the down payment side?

Every buyer's got their own environment. We've been really focused on affordability, this math on the slide that I referred to. So I think a combination of wage growth and monthly payment reduction, and that's why we're so focused on utility savings and mortgage rate savings and all of the things that we do, I think that's probably more important for our buyers than down payment assistance.

Okay. All right. That's all I got.

Thank you. I show no further questions.

Okay. I want to thank everybody for joining us on our call this quarter, and we will talk to you in three months. Thank you very much. This concludes today's call.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect at this time. Thank you, and have a good day.