KB Home (NYSE:KBH) released second-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Tuesday. Read the complete transcript below.

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View the webcast at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/983798894

Summary

KB Home reported second quarter revenues of $1.1 billion and diluted earnings per share of $0.43, meeting or exceeding key guidance ranges.

The company emphasized its strategic shift back to a built-to-order (BTO) model, which accounted for 73% of net orders, allowing for improved predictability and margin stability.

Financially, KB Home repurchased 1.4 million shares and returned over $90 million to shareholders, including dividends, and expanded its book value per share to nearly $62.

The company anticipates sequential growth in deliveries, revenue, and gross margin in the third and fourth quarters, driven by a favorable mix shift towards higher-margin West Coast communities.

Management highlighted operational improvements such as reduced build times to 100 days and a stable cancellation rate, indicating strong buyer commitment.

Challenges in the market include elevated mortgage rates and consumer confidence issues, but KB Home remains optimistic about long-term demand due to structural housing under supply.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good afternoon. My name is John and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the KB Home 2026 Second Quarter Earnings Conference call. All participant lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the Company's opening remarks, we will open the lines for questions. This conference call is being recorded and a replay will be accessible on the KB Home website until July 23rd. I will now turn the call over to Jill Peters, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations.

Thank you, Jill. You may begin.

Jill Peters, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations

Thank you, John. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today to review our results for the second quarter of fiscal 2026. On the call are Jeff Mezger, Executive Chairman; Rob McGibney, President and Chief Executive Officer; Bill Hollinger, Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer; and Thad Johnson, Senior Vice President and Treasurer. During this call, items will be discussed that are considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These statements are not guarantees of future results and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update them due to various factors including those detailed in today's press release and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual results could be materially different from those stated or implied in the forward-looking statements. In addition, an explanation and/or reconciliation of the non-GAAP measure of adjusted housing gross profit margin as well as any other non-GAAP measure referenced during today's discussion to its most directly comparable GAAP measure can be found in today's press release and/or on the Investor Relations page of our website at kbhome.com. Finally, please note, all figures are based on our quarter ended May 31 and all comparisons are on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise stated. And with that, here is Jeff Mezger.

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Jill, and good afternoon everyone. We are pleased to report second quarter results that met or exceeded the midpoint of our key guidance ranges and reflected sequential improvement in our adjusted housing gross profit margin. Operationally, our execution remains strong as we achieved double-digit year-over-year community count growth and further reduced our build times. We exceeded our expected mix of built-to-order sales during the quarter and with the return to this core business model, we expect to have more predictability in deliveries at better gross margins than we would achieve by relying on selling inventory homes at a high level. Our second quarter results included total revenues of $1.1 billion and diluted earnings per share of $0.43. With our significant financial flexibility, we remain balanced in our capital allocation, investing for growth while also returning capital to our shareholders. We repurchased 1.4 million shares of our common stock at an average price below our current book value per share. We believe this is an excellent use of our cash, accretive to both our earnings and book value per share, contributing to improving our return on equity over time.

Inclusive of dividends, we returned over $90 million in capital to our shareholders in the second quarter. In addition, we continue to expand our book value per share to nearly $62 at this time. Let me turn the call over to Rob.

Rob McGibney, President And Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Jeff.

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Jeff. Our teams continue to execute well, balancing pace and price in response to market conditions, driving further efficiencies and build times, and managing our direct cost with discipline. But I will spend most of my time today talking about our strategic return to what KB Home does best in utilizing a built-to-order model. One year ago, on our second quarter fiscal 2025 earnings conference call, we shared our intention to return to predominantly BTO business.

We acknowledged that doing so would create a temporary trough in deliveries, which we believe is now behind us. Our BTO approach and the benefits of it extend beyond any single quarter's results. It is a structural repositioning of our company that we believe will enable stronger, more sustainable performance over time and across market cycles. The fundamental premise of our built-to-order model is putting the customer at the center from day one.

Our buyers choose their lot, floor plan, and personalized finishes. The result is a home that has real specific value to the people who will live in it. Homes built to customer specifications do not require heavy incentives to sell. The buyers are already invested in and feel a connection to the homes they created. This is in contrast to a speculative business model where incentives are used to create value. In that model, the builder increases the incentives to the point at which the buyers believe they have been adequately compensated for features and finishes they did not choose.

Our low cancellation rate reinforces this point. Buyers who commit to a built-to-order home are genuinely invested in it, which means our backlog converts into closings critically for how we run the business. Built-to-order creates a sold backlog before a single foundation is poured. Of the 3,317 net orders we generated in the second quarter, 73% were built-to-order homes. This is not just a mixed metric. It is the result of a deliberate focus creating a backlog of sold not yet started homes, which we believe has three principal benefits.

First, it gives us visibility and predictability. We enter our construction cycle with certainty about the key variables, the buyer, the price, our cost to build, and the expected close date. When a buyer commits and we lock in the purchase price, our direct costs are established before a shovel hits the ground. We are not exposed to material or labor cost increases for that home after construction begins. Crucially, we know the margin we will achieve at delivery before we start.

We view this as a fundamentally lower risk profile than a speculative model where a builder starts a home with an assumption of the future sales price and then finds later at the time of sale that market conditions may require price reductions or heavy incentives which compress the margin that looked attractive when construction began. The visibility and predictability that BTO provides translates directly into more efficient operations and more dependable margins at delivery.

Second, it gives us leverage with our trade partners. We currently have over 1,500 sold homes that have not yet started construction. This pipeline of pending starts is an asset we can leverage in negotiations, particularly when starts are lower in most of our markets as they are now. Our trade partners want volume and predictable workflow, and we can offer both. In exchange, we secure better cost, keep skilled crews on our job sites, and maintain the even flow production cadence of weekly starts per community that drives efficiency across our entire build cycle.

Third, it supports margin quality. Over time, we can produce better margins on BTO homes because we are building homes for buyers who have made choices for themselves with the personalization and value that matter to them. A predominantly BTO business operating at scale with disciplined execution is the foundation that enables us to expand our margins over time. We focused our selling efforts in our second quarter on BTO homes, and our divisions delivered solid performance that will benefit our results.

In the second half of our fiscal 2026, BTO Homes represented nearly 3/4 of our net orders. As I mentioned earlier, this outcome is a clear positive in what was a challenging spring selling season. Although buyers continue to demonstrate the desire for homeownership and the ability to qualify, consumer confidence remains low, driven by a variety of factors from elevated mortgage interest rates and affordability pressures to rising inflation and geopolitical uncertainty.

We continue to attract a healthy level of traffic to our communities, signaling both consumers' interest in purchasing a home and the appeal of our locations and products. And our cancellation rate was stable, reflecting high-quality committed buyers who can close. However, market conditions precipitated a less than optimal conversion of traffic to sales as many consumers lacked the confidence to purchase, resulting in a community absorption rate of four net orders per month.

Looking at our net orders in more detail, we shared on our last earnings call that sales in March had started out a little slower. Sequentially, this contributed to average weekly sales for the month of March that were softer than February, which we attributed to a further weakening in consumer confidence associated with the start of the conflict in the Middle East combined with rising mortgage interest rates. Moving into April, average weekly sales rebounded, helped by lower interest rates as well as steps we took to improve affordability, adjusting pricing in certain communities, which allowed us to capture more of the market.

While market conditions became more challenging in May, with mortgage rates moving higher and inflation accelerating, our sales remained resilient. We view this as an encouraging result given the overall environment. We ended the second quarter with 280 active communities up 11% year over year and we achieved the high end of our target for new communities, including the grand opening of Meridian with five different product lines in Henderson, Nevada, one of the two large land parcels in the Southwest that we acquired last year.

The second of these parcels, Sandstone in North Las Vegas with four distinct product lines, is scheduled to open later this year with more than 70 new communities in the first half of this year. We also attained our peak community count during our second quarter as planned. As we stated on our last earnings call, depending on the pace of sellouts, we expect community count to step down in the second half of this year and we estimate our third quarter ending community count will be between 270 and 280.

Our backlog at quarter end was 4,526 homes which grew 26% sequentially. With the level of BTO net orders that we achieved in the second quarter, we are moving closer to growing our backlog year over year and narrowed the gap significantly as compared to our first quarter. Looking ahead, we expect to continue growing our backlog sequentially in the third quarter and believe this will also be the quarter in which we return to year over year backlog growth.

This will support our projected sequential increase in deliveries during the second half of fiscal 2026 and positions us favorably entering fiscal 2027. Our production is as well balanced across the various stages of construction as we have seen in a long time. Having this cadence is another important aspect of our even flow production and ability to negotiate costs with our trade partners. We have a total of 3,989 homes in process, 77% of which are sold.

We reduced our finished unsold inventory to 11% of our total production as compared to 25% in the first quarter. Having sold through much of our aged inventory, our teams continue to get better and better in efficiently constructing our homes and further reduced our build times in the second quarter by eight days sequentially to 100 days from home start to completion on BTO homes. The ongoing progress made on this key metric is remarkable, driving build times that are now at their lowest best levels in more than a decade.

This is an important factor in the customer value proposition of a BTO home, sharply reducing the differential in the time that it takes to build a personalized home versus purchasing a resale home, historically our largest competitor. Shorter build times also allow our customers to lock their mortgage rates more easily and cost-efficiently. With faster build times, we can sell later in the year for year-end delivery. In 2025 it took us about five months to build a home, which meant early spring was the latest we could sell BTO homes for same-year delivery.

Today, with build times closer to three months, we could continue selling BTO homes into the summer for same-year delivery. By capturing more volume and revenue in the current year, we can better leverage our cost, thereby improving our margins and increasing our cash flow. As to direct cost, they have improved significantly in the past three years. The magnitude of improvement varies by division as regional mix and product types impact results, and in certain divisions, we have reduced our directs by as much as 15%.

More recently, we have seen some pressure on material cost, in particular lumber, which we are working to offset with savings in trade labor costs. Our lumber strategy is diversified with a variety of wood species and lock periods that helped us mitigate the volatility in lumber for homes that we started in the second quarter. Our teams are drawing on our deep supplier relationships to limit cost increases while also actively rebidding and negotiating our local and national contracts to help manage directs very tightly.

In addition, value engineering our products and simplifying our studio offerings are offsetting some of the increase in material cost. Moving on, I will review the credit profile of our buyers who finance their mortgages through our joint venture KBHS Home Loans. These metrics have remained consistent and favorable over the past year, starting with our capture rate with 83% of buyers who financed their home in the second quarter using KBHS. Higher capture rates help us manage our backlog more effectively and provide more certainty in closing dates, which benefits our company as well as our buyers.

In addition, we see higher customer satisfaction levels from buyers who use our JV versus other lenders. The average cash down payment of 15% was fairly steady as compared to prior quarters and equated to about $70,000. On average, the household income of customers who use KBHS was about $136,000 and they had a FICO score of 741 even with 1/2 of our customers purchasing their first home. We are still attracting buyers with strong credit profiles who can qualify for their mortgage while making a significant down payment or pay in cash.

About 8% of our deliveries in the second quarter were to all cash buyers. Before I wrap up, let me spend a moment on how we see the...

Rob McGibney, President And Chief Executive Officer

Remainder of the year unfolding. As we anticipated and is evident in our guidance, we are expecting sequential growth in deliveries, revenue, and gross margin in our third quarter and again in our fourth quarter. Specific to our third quarter deliveries, more than 80% of these homes are already in our backlog. Although Bill will provide the details of our guidance in a moment, let me share some context around our Bay Area business which we expect to be a meaningful gross margin contributor in the back half of this year and beyond.

We took a patient, selective approach to investment in this market given the longer entitlement and development timelines. That positioning is now paying off with the select group of new communities with high ASPs at healthy margins. These communities are now selling and as deliveries ramp up through the second half of 2026 and into fiscal 2027, we expect them to be a meaningful driver of the margin expansion we are discussing today. In conclusion, while we are managing through a difficult market environment, we are also reestablishing our operating identity as a company that builds homes based on decisions that buyers make, creating real value for them. This model enables backlog visibility, cost leverage, and margin predictability that we believe are meaningful differentiators and supports stronger performance over time, both operationally and financially. We acknowledge that we have more work to do on further improving our gross margin, which we are building toward with intention and with second quarter results that demonstrate the start of what we expect to be ongoing progress. And with that, I will turn the call back over to Jeff.

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Rob. We have a favorable lot position owning or controlling over 59,000 lots at the end of our second quarter, 38% of which were controlled and with only one community with approximately 100 lots that was land banked. Our longstanding approach has been to self-finance our land acquisitions as we believe that only in certain situations does land banking make economic sense for our company. Given the gross margin erosion and limited risk transfer from the transaction, this approach has the added benefit of a balance sheet that is more transparent.

Our growth strategy remains primarily centered on expanding our share within our existing markets with a geographic footprint that we believe is positioned for long-term economic and demographic growth. That said, with the success we've had in selectively entering new markets over the past five years in Seattle, Boise, and Charlotte with deliveries that are expected to represent about 10% of our fiscal 2026 volume. This year marks our return to Atlanta.

This is a top 10 housing market characterized by strong demand as well as population and job growth. Our local team is led by a Division President with 25 years of experience in this market, with deep relationships with landowners and sellers that he developed through his years of working for both national and local home builders. We are excited to expand our growth in our Southeast region in this thriving market and we are off to a solid start. We have recently acquired our first land parcel in Atlanta with a projected community opening date in early 2027.

Our approach toward allocating our cash flow remains consistent and balanced. We are achieving our priorities of positioning our business for future growth, managing our leverage within our targeted range, rewarding our shareholders through share repurchases and our quarterly cash dividend. We are maintaining our land investments at a level that will support our current growth projections and invested just under 500 million in land acquisition and development in the second quarter, with roughly 75% of our investment going toward the development and fees for land we already own.

In closing, I want to thank our entire KB Home team for their commitment to serving our home buyers and the discipline with which they've been executing our built-to-order model, which we believe will result in a stronger company going forward. Our year is progressing with expected further sequential improvement in quarterly deliveries, revenues, and gross margin in the back half of fiscal 2026. In addition, our anticipated backlog growth will lay the groundwork for fiscal 2027.

We are rewarding our shareholders with a steady return of capital and we plan to continue our share repurchase program with between 50 million and 100 million of repurchases planned for our third quarter. We remain optimistic about the long-term housing market with favorable demographics underpinning higher demand over time and the ongoing structural under supply of homes supporting our opportunity for meaningful future growth. We are committed to delivering long-term shareholder value and we look forward to updating you as the year continues to unfold.

And now I'll turn the call over to Bill Hollinger for the Financial Review. Thank you, Jeff. In the 2026 second quarter, we generated housing revenues of $1.11 billion, net income of $27.3 million, and diluted earnings per share of $0.43. We continued our balanced approach to capital allocation with land-related investments and returning capital to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. We also kept our debt-to-capital ratio at a healthy level. As you recall, last quarter we provided limited guidance for the 2026 full year.

With greater clarity following our second quarter results, including the softer-than-expected spring selling season, we have refined our 2026 outlook and are providing detailed guidance for both the third quarter and full year. Our housing revenues for the second quarter were just above the midpoint of our guidance range, declining 27% compared to $1.52 billion in the prior period. This result reflects a 23% decrease in the number of homes delivered and a 5% decline in their overall average selling price, primarily driven by general market conditions.

The 2,395 homes we delivered in the quarter represented a backlog conversion rate of 66% compared to 70% a year ago. The modestly lower conversion rate was expected this quarter. As we continued our strategic shift to a higher mix of built-to-order homes delivered in the second quarter, we exceeded our expected mix of BTO net orders. Our renewed focus on build-to-order continues to drive sequential backlog growth, with our total number of homes in backlog up 45% since the beginning of the year.

This trend reflects both our buyers contracting earlier in the construction cycle and provides greater visibility into future deliveries. As Rob noted, based on this momentum, we expect our year-over-year ending backlog comparison to turn positive in the third quarter. Our overall average selling price of homes delivered for the quarter was $461,900, up 2% sequentially due to product and geographic mix. Let me address the anticipated trajectory of our average selling price for the rest of the year.

We believe our average selling price will continue rising sequentially, with the increase becoming more pronounced in the fourth quarter as the larger share of deliveries comes from our higher-priced West Coast region, including Northern California. As Rob highlighted, with the current scale of our business, even modest shifts in regional mix can meaningfully impact our average selling price, and we expect these dynamics to work in our favor as the year progresses.

Based on our current outlook, we expect third quarter homes delivered to range from 2,600 to 2,800 and our housing revenues to range from $1.2 to $1.35 billion for the 2026 full year. We are updating this guidance we provided last quarter for homes delivered; we are maintaining the same midpoint while narrowing the expected range to 10,500 to 11,000 homes. We have also narrowed our range of expected housing revenues to $4.9 to $5.3 billion. Home building operating income for the second quarter was $28.2 million compared to $131.5 million for the prior year quarter.

Operating income in both the current and year-earlier quarters included total inventory charges of $5.6 million. In the current quarter, these charges included a $3.1 million inventory impairment related to a single community, which was not due to any market factors. Our home building operating income margin for the quarter was 2.5% compared to 8.6% for last year's second quarter, mainly due to our lower housing gross profit margin and selling, general, and administrative expenses.

As a percentage of revenues, our second quarter housing gross profit margin was 15.2% compared to 15.3% in the first quarter and 19.3% for the year-earlier quarter. The year-over-year decrease primarily reflected pricing pressures, higher relative land costs, and reduced operating leverage. Excluding inventory-related charges, our housing gross profit margin was 15.7%, which came in just above our guidance range and reflected a modest sequential improvement from the 15.5% for the first quarter.

For comparison, the housing gross margin excluding inventory-related charges in the year-earlier quarter was 19.7%. We are forecasting our housing gross profit margin for the 2026 third quarter in the range of 16 to 16.6% and for the full year in the range of 16.1 to 16.5%, assuming no inventory-related charges. Our full-year outlook reflects our expectation of a more pronounced sequential margin improvement as the year progresses, supported by increased operating leverage, a growing proportion of built-to-order homes delivered, and a favorable mix shift toward higher-price, higher-margin West Coast communities, particularly in Northern California.

As these factors take hold, we anticipate the year-over-year housing gross margin gap to continue to narrow over the balance of the year. Let me take a moment to expand on the sequential margin progression we anticipate for the remainder of the year. The midpoint of our third quarter guidance at 16.3% represents a 60 basis point of sequential improvement. We expect our third quarter margin to benefit mainly from an increase in operating leverage of roughly 30 basis points, along with a lift from a higher mix of BTO deliveries.

Our full-year margin guidance implies a further step up in the fourth quarter at the midpoint, about 100 basis points of sequential expansion. We anticipate this improvement to be driven primarily by roughly 60 basis points of positive operating leverage, along with more meaningful contribution from our expanding BTO mix and additional upside from a favorable mix shift towards higher-price, higher-margin West Coast communities. The projected sequential improvement also reflects some modest offsets, which are incorporated into our guidance.

Our selling, general, and administrative expense ratio for the 2026 second quarter was 12.7% at the midpoint of our guidance. SGA for the quarter included $1.5 million of expenses related to the planned relocation of our corporate headquarters to Tempe, Arizona, in 2027, which we announced in April. We anticipate recognizing additional relocation-related expenses each quarter until the move is fully completed. We will outline the estimated total costs in our second quarter Form 10-Q, which we plan to file on or about July 9th.

These anticipated expenses are included in our guidance. While our total overhead for the quarter decreased from a year ago, our SGA ratio increased mainly due to lower operating leverage. We are forecasting our 2026 third quarter SGA ratio to be in the range of 11.3% to 11.9% and our 2026 full-year ratio to be in the range of 11.4% to 11.8%. We expect our SGA ratio to continue to improve sequentially in the second half of the year, mainly due to increased volume and resulting higher revenues.

Our income tax expense of $9.9 million for the quarter represented an effective tax rate of 26.6% compared to the 24.2% for the year-earlier quarter. The higher-than-expected rate versus our previous guidance was primarily due to lower benefits from stock-based compensation, reflecting fewer stock options exercises than anticipated. All our outstanding stock options are set to expire in October. We expect our effective tax rate to range from 19% to 21% for the 2026 third quarter, which assumes the exercise of all outstanding stock options.

For the full year, we anticipate our effective tax rate will be approximately 22% to 24%, which is slightly lower than last quarter's guidance. As we noted in our previous earnings call, our tax rate in the second half will reflect the reduced impact of energy tax credits due to their elimination for homes delivered after June 30, 2026. As I previously mentioned, we generated net income of $27.3 million and diluted earnings per share of 43 cents.

This compares to net income of $107.9 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.50 for the same quarter of last year. Our diluted average share count for the current quarter was down 12% year over year, reflecting the impact of our share repurchase activity. Turning to the balance sheet, we continued our balanced approach to capital allocation, investing in future growth and returning excess capital to shareholders. In the second quarter, our investment in land acquisition and development was nearly $500 million, bringing our year-to-date total to $1.06 billion.

This is down 26% from last year's first half when we purchased the two large land parcels in our southwest region. As Rob referred to earlier, we ended the quarter with an inventory balance of approximately $5.7 billion, up slightly from where we ended 2025. During the quarter, we repurchased 1.4 million shares of our common stock at a total cost of $75 million, bringing our total year-to-date repurchases to 2.2 million shares at a total cost of $125 million.

With $775 million remaining under our current Board of Authorization and a solid balance sheet, we have the flexibility to continue to repurchase shares in the second quarter. We also paid roughly $15 million in dividends, representing an annualized yield of approximately 2%. We ended the quarter with total liquidity of $1.12 billion, including $200 million of cash and $923 million available under our unsecured revolving credit facility, with $275 million of cash borrowings outstanding.

Our debt-to-capital ratio was 34.1% at the end of the quarter compared to 30.3% at the end of 2025, reflecting the credit facility borrowings. We have no debt maturities until June of 2027. With our land position, liquidity, and well-laddered debt maturities, we feel prepared to manage through the current environment. These strengths support a balanced and disciplined approach to capital allocation in 2026 and beyond and our continued focus on long-term value creation for our shareholders.

For the remainder of 2026, the volume, pace, and timing of land investments, share repurchases, and financing activities will depend on several factors, including our operating cash flow, liquidity outlook, land investment opportunities and needs, and our share price and broader housing market and economic conditions. To wrap up, while the spring selling was softer than expected, given consumer affordability challenges, an uptick in mortgage interest rates, and broader macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, we made meaningful progress in returning to a predominantly built-to-order business and positioning our operations for future profitable growth. With the first half of the year now behind us and our backlog up sequentially over that period, we have greater clarity on the drivers shaping the remainder of 2026 and believe we are poised to deliver on our outlook. We will now take your questions. John, please open the lines.

OPERATOR

Thank you. We will now conduct a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. The confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press Star Two if you would like to remove a question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.

Thank you. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. And the first question comes from the line of John Lavalla with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

John Lavalla, Analyst at UBS

Good evening, guys, and thank you for taking my questions. The gross margin walk that you guys provided from 2Q to 3Q and 3Q to 4Q was really helpful, so I appreciate that. But I guess the question I have is, I believe you mentioned 30 basis points of sequential operating leverage, 2Q to 3Q, and then 60 basis points from 3Q to 4Q. I'm curious, you know, how would this compare in your mind to kind of a normal year? So, in other words, is there anything unusual in this expected leverage?

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, John, I think it's a pretty normal trend.

Rob McGibney, President And Chief Executive Officer

We always deliver more in the second half than we do the first half. It's probably there was less leverage in Q2 because we had the trough in deliveries than we would have in a normal Q2. And we have an overhead structure in place that can continue to handle the scale as we get into 27 as well. So in part, it's what we're seeing in Q3 and Q4, but we think we can continue to benefit looking ahead.

John Lavalla, Analyst at UBS

Okay, that's helpful. And then, you know, you did a nice job of answering my next question as well, but maybe I could just ask it a little bit differently. And that's the fourth quarter delivery ASP. You did talk about some of the drivers of that. It seems like it's going to approach somewhere around 500,000, which would be up sort of 30,000 sequentially. You talked about BTO and some of the Bay Area deliveries. I guess the question would be, is there any way to kind of parse out the benefit from just BTO versus the Bay Area deliveries?

And is there anything else that we should sort of consider in that step up in ASP?

Rob McGibney, President And Chief Executive Officer

I think you've really got them all three there, John. Between the leverage from the scale, the BTO shift, and then what we're expecting is a mix change that's favorable for both ASP and margin and revenue in Q4. Yeah, we haven't really parsed through outside of the leverage piece, you know, the specific drivers from the other part of that incremental step up.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Matthew Boulay with Barclays, please proceed with your question.

Matthew Boulay, Analyst at Barclays

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. So, kind of similar line of questioning on the BTO mix and the California mix. I think I heard you say for the fourth quarter gross margin, the midpoint is around 17.3, and correct me if I'm wrong, so in that fourth quarter is the BTO mix kind of at the targeted run rate and so we can kind of run with that jump off point for 2027. And then on the California mix, similar question. I think I heard you say you're going to expect benefits there into 2027. So kind of a finer point on your 4Q expectations and what it means for 2027 there on both those fronts. Thank you.

Rob McGibney, President And Chief Executive Officer

As far as the BTO mix, I wouldn't say we'll be fully there. You know, we expected the BTO on deliveries is probably going to be plus or minus in the 70% range when we get to Q4. I think there's some potential upside beyond that and we'll still have some spec coverage that we're doing likely as we get into Q4. What was the other part of the question? Oh, yeah, the west coast piece. So we talked about this a little bit on our last call. Certainly we see that playing through in the numbers.

But when we think specifically about our Northern California and really the Bay Area business, both south and north, our teams there have done a good job of growing the lot pipeline. And we're coming off of a few years where that lot pipeline was a little thinner, deliveries were a little thinner. But you know, we're seeing a good book of business that's coming through, high ASP, strong margins. And we don't see that as a Q4 event, really, that see it more as a structural change that's going to be with us for a long time as that we've got our discipline and our rhythm back in that area of the country.

Matthew Boulay, Analyst at Barclays

Awesome. Great, great. Thanks for that color. And then secondly, I wanted to, I guess, touch a little bit on the comments around the spring selling season. I think you said there were some price adjustments in April and then you said in May there might have been additional challenging market conditions. I'm curious, I guess, number one, if maybe if you could draw that into June, anything you've seen more recently. But then also I'm wondering if these factors are included in the margin guidance for 2026 or any of these kind of pricing adjustments, could they still kind of bleed into what you see in 2027? Thanks, guys and good luck.

Rob McGibney, President And Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, so we've just to take the last part first. We've absolutely put in everything into our guidance as we see it. We're. We're just. We've got a lot better visibility than we've had in prior years because of the backlog that we have resulting from our. Our shift to BTO. So it's fully baked into our guidance and our projections for the back half of 2026. As far as June goes, I would say, you know, we're not really seeing any surprising changes from how things trended in the second quarter.

We're seeing the typical seasonality trends coming out of the spring selling season. But our order pace has been steady and it's tracking right in line with our expectations. And nothing in the cadence through June has given us any cause for concern. It's playing out about the way that we would expect it to so far, and it supports our plan and our guidance for the back half of the year. You know, on top of that, our BTO mix continues to build as a percentage of orders, which we're pleased with.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Stephen Kim with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Stephen Kim, Analyst at Evercore ISI

Yeah, thanks very much, guys. Appreciate all the color. Bill, nice to hear you on the call again. I guess my first question, I'm going to start with the California or the Bay Area deliveries, you know, in the communities in particular. I think you indicated that this is something that's going to provide a positive impact, not just this year, but I think you said this year and beyond, and I wanted to touch on that phrase. So, you know, we obviously have a select group of communities in the bay with higher ASPs, higher margins, all that kind of thing. But I wanted to make sure that. I'm understanding that you're saying that this is actually. That there's a pipeline of similar communities in your land holdings behind that. I wanted to make sure that that's actually true. And we're not going to, you know, see things drop back once these communities sell out, for example.

So can you talk about the pipeline of the communities sort of this. That kind of price point? And can you talk about maybe what drove the change effectively, why maybe the dropout? Why you had a period where that. Where you didn't have those communities and just provide some color there. Thanks.

Rob McGibney, President And Chief Executive Officer

Sure, Steve. So, you know, as far as the communities themselves, we've got generally, you know, larger lot count in the community portfolio or the book of business and just more of them coming. Some of them are on structured takedowns. But as we look at the way that this area has developed for us to the second part of your question, it's really getting back to what we once were in this Bay Area business. So we have had some changes with the management teams up there over the last several years.

We're happy with the team we've got now. They've been delivering good deal flow. We've been pleased with the communities that they've opened, and we've continued to invest in those areas. So there was a time when the core South Bay was one of our most profitable divisions for a long time, and it had really shrunk down to a pretty small business. And we've been growing that back and we're just now getting to the point where we're seeing the results of that flow through the delivery.

So it was a bit of a trough, if you will, in deliveries coming out of that specific region that we've now got back on track and we're pleased with.

Stephen Kim, Analyst at Evercore ISI

Yeah, that sounds really great. Kind of more of a normalization then. That's great. Next question relates to land. And so when we look at your land holdings, it seems like you walked away from, I don't know, maybe 1,750 lots or something like that. Mostly in your option count, it seems like. So you walked away from. I was wondering if you could talk about your thinking around that decline, you know, what sort of drove it. Were there some, you know, is that getting you to a level that you feel comfortable with? Maybe if you could talk about what you think the long term optimal level of land owned and option is not mix, but year supply of each, that would be great. Thanks.

Rob McGibney, President And Chief Executive Officer

So we try to target a three to five year supply of lots and, you know, there are ins and outs and puts and takes with that. And if it's the right deal, we may go longer than that. We certainly buy deals that are closer to just a year's worth of deliveries. But as far as the lots that we've chosen to walk away from, it's really just been about staying disciplined to our approach and making sure that as we're focused on driving growth, that that profitable growth. And as you know, the market's been choppy, things have moved around a lot, and we're not afraid to walk away from deals that we have under option or under contract if they no longer make financial sense.

And our first salvo is to go approach the landowner or the seller and renegotiate a better price or better terms. But we don't always get that, and that's really the driver of why we've walked away from some of the, the lots that you're referring to. Most of them, really, all of them have been deals that we've tied up with a deposit and we're, you know, in feasibility or, you know, through due diligence and haven't gotten a lot of money invested them at that point. And, you know, we're just not going to keep proceeding down a path on a deal that we don't see as meeting our return hurdles.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Mike Dahl with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Mike Dahl, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Thanks for taking my questions. Sorry for the repetitive ones on California. But can you just remind us maybe what percentage of deliveries and revenues did that, did that division used to represent for you? What did it drop down to these past couple of years? And then what, when you're talking about kind of having the pipeline, does that assume. Can you just help us quantify a little bit better, like what percentage of mix this represents since it does seem to be sort of a meaningful thing for you, Mike?

We don't really have that data at hand. The reason that we specifically called out the Bay Area in the second quarter, what Rob walked through, we had a challenge situation up there. Our team wasn't delivering. Our results really eroded. And we didn't share on our calls that the results were eroding because it would have just come off as an excuse. And we powered through it and we've rebuilt the business. The pipeline's back where it's healthy and going in the right direction.

And for years and years, the south bay division was 10 to 15% of our profits, just that one division. And a lot of that went away and now it's coming back. And it's a combination of a high ASP, high margin area that is also performing very well right now. It's one of the best housing markets in the country. So we're calling it out now because at our current scale, the change in ASP can be pretty significant, as you're seeing in our guide for the fourth quarter.

But the pipeline's there and we continue to expect bigger and better things in future years. Yeah, okay, I hear you, Jeff. I think a finer point at some point might be helpful just to underscore and help us all with the conviction that that's going to be like something that is kind of a good go forward run rate or continued kind of improvement lever, I guess, just shifting gears back to the demand side. I appreciate the comments on June being seasonal, can you just that cadence through May, if you were at four a month for the quarter, can you be more specific about kind of where May sat?

And then when you talk about June seasonal, was that seasonal as in what you'd see in 3Q versus 2Q typically, or was it seasonal off of what was a weaker than normal May? Just help us dial that in a little bit better if you could.

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Well, really, the March, which we usually expect to be one of our best selling months of the spring selling season, was what was really soft. And as I walked through in the prepared remarks, there was a lot going on at that time, I think a lot weighing on the consumer psyche, specifically late February, the very end of February, the conflict in the Middle East kicking off. So we were happy with the way that sales rebounded in April. And I would say that April and May were stronger than March were.

If you were to distill it all down as we've gotten into June, really, it's continued about with where we ended up with March. Orders have been strong, they've been in line with our expectations. And it's about this time of year we usually start to see more of a seasonal summer slowdown. And you know, without getting into specific sales results and dates and weeks, I'd say what we're seeing right now is aligned with that typical seasonal pattern.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Alan Ratner with Zellman and Associates. Please proceed with your question.

Alan Ratner, Analyst at Zellman and Associates

Hey guys, good afternoon. Early evening. Appreciate all the details so far and nice job with the improvement towards pivoting back to BTO. My first question, you want to add on to some of the questions on the lot count and I guess the land market more broadly, you know, your lot count is down quite a bit over the last four to five quarters, down over 20% from where it peaked early last year. And I'm just curious though, as we think about community count beyond this year, you know, how should we think about the impact of the decline we've seen in lot count over the last five quarters?

Is that going to result in some compression or kind of an air pocketing community count maybe out into 27 or 28? And the follow on to that, I guess, is more broadly in the land market in general. Have you seen any relief or correction in land prices that get you guys excited that there might be some opportunities to rebuild that pipeline over the next few quarters?

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Alan. I'll take the first half and then kick it to Rob for the current environment. If you think about it, the lots on the control started going down as the market started going down and as things got very volatile, if you will, with pricing and consumer sentiment and whatnot, we were having trouble getting things to underwrite. And if you go back to 20, 21, 22, the market was going the other way. It was easier to underwrite and we tied up a lot of deals.

So as we sit here today, we're actively looking at deals each week. We intend to grow the company and we're positioned, our balance sheet supports it and we do have growth targets out there for 27 and 28 that the divisions are pursuing. What is interesting, and then I'll hand it to Rob, we're seeing some opportunities for finished lot deals as the markets are resetting where we can get into things. We have plug and play product and get to deliveries sooner than later as opposed to what we've been through in the Bay Area with long term entitlement plays.

So the market is rational to me and there's finished lot opportunities and we're chasing those right now.

Rob McGibney, President And Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. As far as the overall land market goes, I would say that we're beginning to see more than what we've seen over the past couple of years. As far as the sellers starting to come to terms with the reality of the current market, I wouldn't say that it's fully adjusted to the point where you can go out and, you know, most of our markets and just start adding lots at scale that would meet our underwriting hurdles today. But certainly looking at things like better terms, in some cases prices coming down, maybe less competition out there for some of the lots.

But overall, I would say that the sellers are starting to get a little more constructive with, with tethering their lot price and the finished lot price that we would get to where current prices are today and where the current values are today. So I think there's more work to do. And it's again, like with a lot of these things, it's a market by market story. Some have softened up more than others, especially where you've seen house prices come down and there's data to point to.

But overall I'd say it's getting, there's more, you know, rational thinking as far as the land sellers go on the value of their, their asset.

Alan Ratner, Analyst at Zellman and Associates

Great. Appreciate the color, guys. Thanks a lot.

OPERATOR

And the next question comes from the line of Raif Jadrasich with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Raif Jadrasich, Analyst at Bank of America

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Can you guys just provide the percent of deliveries that were built to order in the second quarter and maybe like the cadence for the back half of the year?

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Are you talking orders or deliveries?

Raif Jadrasich, Analyst at Bank of America

How much were deliveries in the second quarter were BTO?

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, it was 60% in the second quarter and we see that progressing. You know, we're not going to call the ball on an exact number, but as I said, we think that'll continue to ramp up. And by the time we get to Q4, I would expect that we would be, you know, plus or minus around 70% of our deliveries coming from build to order.

Raif Jadrasich, Analyst at Bank of America

Great, that's helpful. And then as you look at sort of the outlook for gross margin, just you mentioned you're starting to see some lumber inflation. What's the assumption in terms of stick and brick costs and land inflation as you move through the back half of this year?

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

So we look at anytime we're putting financials together or guide together, we're basing everything off today. So it's today's sales prices, today's cost and you know, we don't have a crystal ball with where things are headed. Certainly there's been a lot of talk about pressure around fuel related price increases and we've been pushing those off and negotiating those off. Now you've got fuel prices coming down. So we're not looking out and projecting where commodity prices or things like that may go.

We're basing it on as we see it today, where our prices are, where the revenue side is and where our commodities side is coming in. Yeah, the other thing, you know, we're, we are seeing, I mentioned it in my prepared remarks, but across most of our markets, probably close to all of our markets, we're seeing a pretty significant decline in starts year over year. And I mentioned the 1500 homes that we have that are sold, not started right now. I think that's a great asset and a powerful tool that we can leverage for better costs.

So even as things get, you know, if they get a little bumpy or prices move around, we've got that asset that we can lever for those starts. And generally when starts are coming down, our trade partners get hungrier for work and that'll either keep a lid on cost or potentially drive them down from today's levels.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Paul Przyzbilski with Wolff Research. Please proceed with your question.

Paul Przyzbilski, Analyst at Wolff Research

Thanks. Good afternoon. I guess to start off, you know, congratulations again on the build to order shift related to that, you know, historically I think, you know, build to order has had a 300 to 500 basis point gross margin premium to specific. Are you seeing that spread continue to hold or you had to, you know, kind of shrink that somewhat to get that increased mix?

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

No, we're. We actually haven't seen that change in probably the better part of two years. It's, it's been within that range and really the midpoint is about right. I mean, we could probably even tighten that some. It's right around four points of spread is what we typically see between BTO and inspector. Even within the same community, same product.

Paul Przyzbilski, Analyst at Wolff Research

Okay. And then I guess you mentioned your reentry into Atlanta. How long do you think it'll take you to get that market to scale and why now? And do you have any other markets on your radar?

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, well, we had our startup in Seattle several years ago and that's been really a model for us that we would like to follow. And only a few years have passed since we entered that market and we've now grown it to a top three position. So we'd like to replicate that in Atlanta, just like we're working on in Boise. And Atlanta is very new. We just acquired our first land deal there. You know, I don't really have a prediction for when or how big we can get there, but we think there's a great opportunity. It's a top 10 housing market and we've got a really good template with what we've done with Seattle, what we've done with Boise and other places that we can follow there. And we're excited about the opportunity and the growth opportunity we can drive coming out of Atlanta.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Jade Rahmani with KBW. Please proceed with your question.

Jade Rahmani, Analyst at KBW

Thank you very much. Just on the San Francisco question, which happens to be, I think, the strongest real estate market in the country, what's the sustainability of your community count and land supply in the market and the current demand outlook that you're seeing?

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, well, we're, like I said, we're happy with the footprint and the portfolio that we've developed. And it really all comes down to acquiring new deals as we sell through and deliver on the assets that we've got. So our teams are out there. We feel like we've got a really strong land team in that market. They know how to work entitlements, they know how to work the processes. They're well connected. So our approach is to grow it certainly from where we are today. As we mentioned, it had shrunk down. We didn't like seeing that happen. We're happy with getting it back to what I would call stable and now growing. And our focus is on continuing to grow it as long as we can continue to find profitable land deals.

Jade Rahmani, Analyst at KBW

And could you quantify by what magnitude you're expecting to ramp up land investment in the Bay Area?

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

No, I mean, we're, I'm going to stay away from that one. I mean, it's, you know, it's. We're looking to grow all of our. All of our cities that we operate in, all of our divisions, all of our regions. So, you know, we don't really do capital allocation in a way that we would say we're going to allocate X to this division or this area. We look at every deal. We're open for business every Monday on land committee. And if a deal meets our hurdles and we like the proposition that we're going to do it, but we don't really look at it in terms of, you know, allocating a certain amount of capital or defining a certain level of land acquisition that we're after in a specific market.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Jay McCandless with Citizens Bank. Please proceed with your question.

Jay McCandless, Analyst at Citizens Bank

Hey, good afternoon. My first question just with the very high level of M and A we've seen this year, is that opening up any potential tailwinds for KB or is it creating some headwinds as the 7a wave seems to keep going?

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Jay, for us, it's business as usual. We don't want to comment on what others have done, but we see our real opportunities to grow and stay focused on KB Home. A logo changes. I don't know anything else change.

Jay McCandless, Analyst at Citizens Bank

Right. Well, I just, I kind of. Alan stole my question around the community count, but I didn't know if all this turnover and ownership was giving you guys an opportunity to maybe grow the community count, add some lots a little bit faster.

Jeffrey Mezger, Chief Executive Officer

Well, we're always looking at the private builders and it's most of the time it's difficult to get it to pencil because they want a premium to sell their communities. And you throw the premium on, then you don't get the margin. So we're our saying here is keep turning all the rocks over and see what we can find. So we are out looking at M&A, but we haven't been able to find one that works in the last couple years.

Jay McCandless, Analyst at Citizens Bank

Understood. Okay, thanks. Segment question.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, that is the end of the question and answer session. And that also concludes today's teleconference we thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time.

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