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Century CCS Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
Century CCS Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Globe and Mail

time7 hours ago

  • Business
  • Globe and Mail

Century CCS Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

DATE Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 5 p.m. ET CALL PARTICIPANTS Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chairman — Dale Francescon Co-Chief Executive Officer and President — Rob Francescon Chief Financial Officer — Scott Dixon Need a quote from one of our analysts? Email pr@ RISKS Scott Dixon said, "We are revising our full-year 2025 home delivery guidance to be in the range of 10,000 to 10,500 homes," lowering previous expectations due to seasonal demand slowdowns and a weaker backlog. Adjusted homebuilding gross margin declined sequentially to 20% in Q2 2025, down from 21.6% in Q1 2025, with Scott Dixon stating that higher incentives "will be really the largest driver on the margin side." Cancellation rates continue below pre-COVID averages but absorption rates "are trending below Q2 2025 levels," indicating recent order weakness. Scott Dixon reported an inventory impairment charge of $7 million related to five communities, "primarily in Florida," due to aggressive pricing in closeout phases. TAKEAWAYS Home Deliveries: 2,587 units delivered, up 13% sequentially and above the guided range of 2,300 to 2,500 homes. Net New Contracts: 2,546 net new contracts, with sequential improvement in absorption rates during May and June but softness below typical seasonal patterns. Home Sales Revenue: Home sales revenue was $976 million, marking a 10% sequential increase driven by higher deliveries. Average Sales Price: Average sales price was $378,000, a 3% decrease year-over-year, primarily due to higher incentive levels. Book Value Per Share: Book value per share was $86.39, a 10% increase year-over-year and a company record. Community Count: Reached a record 327 at quarter-end, all growth materializing in June. Share Repurchases: $48 million in the quarter (884,000 shares), 3% of beginning shares; year-to-date repurchases of $104 million, 5% of shares from the start of the year. The company has repurchased over 8% of its shares outstanding since the start of 2024. Direct Construction Costs: Direct construction costs decreased 3% year-over-year and declined by 2% sequentially on delivered homes. Lot Inventory: Nearly 70,000 owned and controlled lots; controlled lot count decreased by 12,000 sequentially due to reassessed deals, with a $2.6 million associated charge. Homebuilding Gross Margin: Homebuilding gross margin, excluding inventory impairment, was 18.4%, down from 19.9% in the first quarter. Incentives were approximately 1,050 basis points, up from roughly 900 basis points in Q1 2025. SG&A: 13.2% of home sales revenue; third-quarter SG&A expected at 14%. The company expects SG&A as a percent of home sales revenue to be approximately 13% for full-year 2025. Financial Services Revenue: $23.8 million in revenues from financial services, with pre-tax income of $6.2 million, including a $4 million gain from the sale of mortgage servicing rights on $3 billion of unpaid principal. Dividend: Maintained at $0.29 per share. Liquidity and Capital: $858 million in liquidity; $2.6 billion in stockholders' equity; no senior debt maturities until June 2027. SUMMARY Century Communities, Inc. (NYSE:CCS) lowered its full-year 2025 home delivery and revenue guidance as management cited seasonal slowdowns and weaker backlogs heading into Q3. Sequential improvements were seen in net orders and absorption rates during May and June, but recent order activity in July softened below Q2 2025 levels, contributing to updated guidance. Incentives rose further as a response to affordability constraints, lowering average sales price and compressing margins despite ongoing direct cost reductions. Rob Francescon stated that "the big kind of purge," referring to a 12,000-lot reduction as part of disciplined land management, and that the company is changing the terms to push things out into 2026, which is the current focus. 70% of homebuyers utilized government-backed loans, while adoption of adjustable-rate mortgages increased sequentially. Cycle times continued to improve to approximately four months, with some homes completed in as little as 70-90 days for certain product lines. The company expects incentives to "increase by up to another 100 basis points in our Q3 2025 closings," per Rob Francescon, suggesting ongoing pressure on gross margins. INDUSTRY GLOSSARY Absorption Rate: The rate at which new homes in a community are sold over a given period. Spec Home: A home constructed by a builder without a specific buyer, built based on expected demand. Option Agreement: A contract allowing a builder to purchase land at set terms in the future, typically with less risk and capital outlay than full land ownership. 45L Credit: A federal tax credit for builders of energy-efficient homes in the U.S. Full Conference Call Transcript Dale Francescon: Thank you, Tyler, and good afternoon, everyone. In the second quarter, we continued to execute well in the challenging environment, generating results that were in line with the expectations outlined during our first quarter conference call back in April. Similar to the trends from the first quarter, order activity for new homes has continued to be impacted by elevated mortgage rates, affordability constraints, economic uncertainty, and lower consumer confidence. While we saw improvement in our order activity as the second quarter progressed, buyers are still cautious and hesitant, and as expected, our incentives increased in the second quarter as we look to maintain an appropriate sales base. Despite the market headwinds, our deliveries of 2,587 homes increased 13% on a sequential basis and exceeded our guidance of 2,300 to 2,500 homes as customers responded to incentives, enabling us to sell and close a greater number of homes within the quarter. While the spring selling season was clearly muted compared to historical trends, we continue to believe there is underlying demand for affordable new homes supported by solid demographic trends. We were encouraged by several trends that we saw during the second quarter. Both our net orders and absorption rates increased on a sequential basis in May and June, while our cancellation rates remained in line with the levels we have seen over the past several years and well below our pre-COVID averages in the 20% to 25% range. Also, absorption rates for our Century Complete brand were roughly flat on a year-over-year basis, and we believe the business continues to benefit from its focus on markets where there is less direct competition from other large builders. However, despite these positive trends, our second quarter absorptions were below seasonal expectations, and given typical seasonality, so far in July, our absorption rate is trending below second quarter 2025 levels. Our ending community count increased to 327 communities at the end of the second quarter, a record for the company. While we have remained disciplined on the land front and reassessed deals to make sure they pencil in the current environment, we also continue to expect our year-end 2025 community count to increase in the mid-single-digit percentage range on a year-over-year basis over the next couple of years, which will provide a strong base to execute from. As we have stated in the past, we are not focused on growth for the sake of growth alone, and we look to balance pace and price at the community level to optimize our returns. We are also taking a balanced approach towards capital allocation. We repurchased $48 million of our shares in the second quarter, or approximately 3% of shares outstanding at the beginning of the quarter, bringing our year-to-date total to $104 million, or 5% of our shares outstanding at the beginning of the year. Additionally, since the start of 2024, we have repurchased over 8% of our shares outstanding. Our book value per share increased by 10% on a year-over-year basis to $86.39, a company record. Before turning the call over to Rob, I wanted to highlight that Century was recently recognized as one of the best companies to work for by US News and World Report. It is our people that make Century Communities a great company, and I want to thank our team members for all they do to create a culture of excellence in support of our mission of providing our customers a home for everybody. I'll now turn the call over to Rob to discuss our operations and land position in more detail. Rob Francescon: Thank you, Dale, and good afternoon, everyone. Our second quarter net new contracts for 2,546 homes, with both our orders and absorption rates increasing sequentially in May and June. Our ending community count increased to 327 communities at the end of the second quarter, a record for the company. I would like to point out that all of the net growth in our community count this quarter came in June, and especially in the back half of June, with our April and May community counts below our first quarter ending community count of 318. As a result, our orders in the second quarter did not see a significant benefit from the growth in our quarter-end community count. We currently expect our year-end 2025 community count to increase in the mid-single-digit percentage range, which, coupled with our 28% year-over-year growth for the full year 2024, will provide a strong base for future growth in the years ahead. We had continued success in controlling our costs in the second quarter. Our direct construction costs on the homes we delivered declined by 3% on a year-over-year basis and 2% sequentially. As housing starts have slowed, our negotiating power has increased, and we expect to see further cost reductions in the quarters ahead. On the land side, our finished lot costs on the homes we delivered in the second quarter were flat on a quarter-over-quarter basis, similar to the trend that we saw last quarter. Going forward, we would expect to see some land inflation flow through on our deliveries that will be partially offset by direct cost reductions. As expected, given the competitive pressure, approximately 1,050 basis points in the second quarter of 2025, up from roughly 900 basis points in the first quarter. Looking forward, we continue to expect incentive levels to be the largest driver of changes to our gross margins in the near term, given our success in managing our costs. We currently expect incentives to increase by up to another 100 basis points in our third quarter closings. During the second quarter, our cycle times continued to improve on a sequential basis and currently sit at approximately four months, and we have not seen any impacts from immigration reform on our labor base so far. In the second quarter, we started 2,485 homes, and similar to the past several quarters, have continued our focus on maintaining an appropriate level of spec home inventory by generally matching our starts with our sales. Turning to land, we ended the second quarter with nearly 70,000 owned and controlled lots. Our owned lot count has remained relatively steady since the third quarter of last year, and we have remained disciplined on the land front and contained underwrite deals to current market assumptions. During the quarter, we were also able to renegotiate a portion of our existing contracts for controlled lots, securing better terms for the most part and lower prices in some cases. Given our discipline, our controlled lot count decreased by 12,000 lots sequentially as we exited deals that no longer met our criteria, which resulted in approximately $2.6 million of charges. As we have said in the past, we believe that our low-risk landline business strategy that is primarily based on more traditional option agreements with individual landowners and third-party land developers allows us greater flexibility to renegotiate terms versus what could be achieved through an option strategy based on land banking agreements. While the industry as a whole is currently facing headwinds, we remain focused on growing our community count, maintaining a solid balance sheet, being opportunistic with our allocation of capital, and building value for our shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Scott to discuss our financial results in more detail. Scott Dixon: Thank you, Rob. In the second quarter, pre-tax income was $47 million, and net income was $35 million, or $1.14 per diluted share. Adjusted net income was $42 million, or $1.37 per diluted share. EBITDA for the quarter was $76 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $76 million. Home sales revenues for the second quarter were $976 million, up 10% sequentially on higher deliveries. Our deliveries of 2,587 homes in the second quarter were essentially flat on a year-over-year basis, with elevated mortgage rates and economic uncertainty weighing on order activity. Our second quarter average sales price of $378,000 decreased by 3% on a year-over-year basis, primarily due to higher levels of incentives. For the third quarter of 2025, we expect our deliveries to range from 2,300 to 2,500 homes. This estimate is based on our backlog heading into the quarter and anticipated seasonal absorptions. As a reminder, we usually see a sequential decrease in our absorption rates in the third quarter, with July and August typically representing some of the slower months of the year. At quarter-end, our backlog of sold homes was 1,217, valued at $466 million, with an average sales price of $383,000. In the second quarter, adjusted homebuilding gross margin was 20% compared to 21.6% in the first quarter of this year. Homebuilding gross margin, excluding inventory impairment, was 18.4% versus 19.9% in the first quarter. The quarter-over-quarter differential was driven almost entirely by increased incentive levels. Consistent with the first quarter, purchase price accounting associated with our two acquisitions in 2024 reduced our second quarter 2025 gross margin by 20 basis points. We would expect purchase price accounting to have a similar impact on our homebuilding gross margin in the third and fourth quarters of 2025. We also took an inventory impairment charge of $7 million in the second quarter related to five communities that were in their closeout phase and located primarily in Florida. For the third quarter of 2025, we expect our homebuilding gross margin to ease on a sequential basis by up to 100 basis points compared to our second quarter, primarily due to higher levels of incentives. SG&A as a percentage of home sales revenue was 13.2% in the second quarter. Assuming the midpoint of our full-year home sales revenue guidance, we expect our SG&A as a percent of home sales revenue to be roughly 13% for the full year 2025, with SG&A as a percentage of home sales revenue of 14% for the third quarter. Revenues from financial services were $23.8 million in the second quarter, and the business generated pre-tax income of $6.2 million, benefited from the sale of mortgage servicing rights on loans with $3 billion of unpaid principal for approximately $47.3 million. This transaction resulted in a gain of $4 million. Now, this gain is partially offset by mark-to-market adjustments related to our mortgage loans held for investment. We currently anticipate that the contribution margin from financial services in the back half of the year will more closely resemble our first quarter results. Our tax rate was 26% in the second quarter of 2025. We continue to expect our full-year tax rate for 2025 to be in the range of 25% to 26%, with the increase over our full-year 2024 tax rate of 24.1% primarily driven by a reduced number of homes expected to qualify for 45L credits. Our second quarter 2025 net homebuilding debt to net capital ratio equals 31%, compared to the first quarter 2025 levels of 30.1%. Our homebuilding debt to capital ratio equaled 33.3% in the second quarter compared to first quarter 2025 levels of 32.4%. During the quarter, we maintained our quarterly cash dividend of $0.29 per share and also repurchased 884,000 shares of our common stock for $48 million at an average share price of $54.35, or a 37% discount to our book value per share of $86.39 as of the end of the second quarter. Through the first six months of the year, we have repurchased 1.6 million shares for 5% of our shares outstanding at the beginning of the year. We ended the quarter with $2.6 billion in stockholders' equity and $858 million of liquidity. We also have no senior debt maturities until June of 2027, providing us ample flexibility with our leverage management. Turning to guidance, due to current market conditions, we are revising our full-year 2025 home delivery guidance to be in the range of 10,000 to 10,500 homes and home sales revenues to be in the range of $3.8 to $4 billion. In closing, we are taking the necessary steps to address the headwinds facing the market, including reducing our costs, remaining disciplined on the land front, and maintaining an appropriate level of spec home inventory by matching our starts with our sales. Given where our shares have been trading, we've been opportunistic with share repurchases, also positioning the company well for future growth supported by our lot pipeline, community count, and strong balance sheet. With that, I'll open the lines for questions. Operator? Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the calling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Alex Rygiel of Texas Capital. Please go ahead. Alex Rygiel: Thank you. Good evening, gentlemen. First question, how are you thinking about your land investment in the second half of the year versus the first half? Rob Francescon: So we're gonna reduce, Alex, first off, great to hear from you. But we're gonna reduce our land investment going forward. And as you know, we pointed out, we dropped about 12,000 lots in the second quarter, as we're getting a more disciplined underwriting to bring everything to market now, that was the bulk of things we believe. But, you know, things are being pushed out because candidly, we don't need a lot of the lots right now. So we're changing the terms to push things out into 2026. And that's kind of our focus right now. But the big kind of purge, if you will, was in Q2. Scott Dixon: And, Alex, this is Scott. If I could just add on. I think for the benefits that we're seeing of our maybe more traditional landline strategy is just our ability to have flexibility within our runway on the lot side. We were able to really move a significant number of lots either out or obtain better pricing with really, really small impact from a feasibility cost perspective. Alex Rygiel: Sure. Understood. And then can you talk a little bit about the mortgage products your buyers are using? And are you seeing any buyers use any ARMs? Rob Francescon: Yeah. Great question and very topical at the moment. So we're running about 70% on governmental, 30% on conventionals. Just generally speaking. We've really been leaning into the ARMs really from kind of a late Q1 into Q2, and we're certainly seeing the buyer acceptance of that continue to pick up sequentially as the quarter and the year has gone on. Alex Rygiel: Very helpful. Thank you. Good luck. Rob Francescon: Thank you. Operator: Your second question comes from Rohit Seth of B. Riley. Please go ahead. Rohit Seth: Hey. Thanks for taking my question. Just on the 2025 deliveries guidance, maybe just talk to, you know, the drivers behind lowering it. What you're seeing in July, you know, was the traffic, affordability, just any color you can add there and my follow-up would be on if you just discuss kind of what you're seeing across your footprint. Scott Dixon: Sure. Absolutely. And this is Scott, Rohit. So from a guide perspective, you know, we really step back and look at it and look where, you know, look where our backlog is at the moment going into the quarter, you know, knowing that the third quarter from a demand perspective is generally one of the slowest periods of the year, especially at the beginning of the quarter from July and August. That was really a large driver of the revision that we did. We're just looking at the third quarter. From a market perspective, you know, I can hit a handful of things here. I think as you run through our various regions, you know, West, for the most part, I think it's held up as strong as any of our markets. Certainly, we've seen a little bit of recent slowing maybe in California, but West in general continues to be very strong. Mountain is a little bit of the tale of various different markets. We see Vegas started out the year very, very strong and just slowed slightly, but it's still a very strong market for us. With maybe Colorado at the moment working through some affordability issues. Moving on to Texas, we have a very small footprint in Dallas. I think Dallas generally has been very challenged. But Houston and San Antonio, which are slightly larger positions from us, are certainly working through some affordability items and some inventory supply, but where we continue to move product and our margins continue to be rather consistent within Texas. And then I think our strongest market overall really has been Southeast. Atlanta is a large driver of our position in the Southeast, as well as Charlotte and Nashville. And generally speaking, I would say that those have been the best of any of our markets. And then the last piece that, you know, an interesting dynamic that we're really excited to see is our Century Complete brand, which really attracts, you know, even a more affordable buyer type. It really attracts and doesn't compete necessarily directly with some of the larger publics in certain markets. That has really held up quite well. The Carolinas as well as the Midwest are Century Complete ones that I would call out as being quite strong. Rohit Seth: Okay. Thank you. If I could squeeze one more in on gross margin. I'm good. You kinda hit by the 20% on the adjusted side. Raising incentives a little bit here. And so are there any offsets that we should think about? I know you talked about lower costs, lower direct costs, labor costs coming in, savings coming in, but you had some higher lands. Just trying to get a sense of, you know, we touched the bottom here for margins or you still got a little bit more pressure here? Scott Dixon: Yeah. Well, obviously, a little bit difficult to specifically tell. I would say on the cost side, we have been very successful in getting direct costs out of our homes, and we believe there's continued opportunity to do that. And we see that flowing through from a deliveries perspective certainly in the back half of the year. However, to some degree, that is offset from really some normal inflation on the land side. So apples to apples rather consistent on the cost side, and we continue to think that incentives as they move through the P&L will be really the largest driver on the margin side. Rohit Seth: Understood. Thank you. Operator: Absolutely. Your third question comes from Alan Ratner of Belmont Associates. Please go ahead. Alan Ratner: Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for all the detail and all the helpful guidance. Appreciated. First question, you know, you alluded to this in a prior response to a question, but I, you know, you walked away from, I think, 12,000 or so lots, but you did allude to renegotiations that are ongoing and even some price concessions from land sellers. And I'm curious, you know, what type of magnitude are you seeing there? Are you seeing real capitulation yet in the land market? And if so, is there any ability to actually lower land cost on actively selling communities, or are these more kind of go-forward projects that are earlier in the due diligence process? Rob Francescon: Go forward. Yeah. It's more go forward, and we're not seeing really huge changes in pricing, more on structure of deals. Pushing out takes for a more just-in-time basis. But in terms of pricing, you know, there is some of that in certain markets, but we have not seen that across the board. Alan Ratner: Got it. Okay. Second question, you know, if I look at your margin guidance for the third quarter, take, you know, roughly the down 100 basis points on gross margin and the 14% on SG&A. I'm getting to a pre-tax margin, you know, in the low single-digit range overall, which would definitely be the lowest level we've seen in quite a while. And, you know, that's traditionally a level I would imagine where if that's a company average, there's, you know, a decent number of projects that are closer to breakeven. So do you have any disclosure you give in terms of, I know some builders give, like, an impairment watch list, you know, what percentage of communities are on that watch list that have indicators of potential impairment? Scott Dixon: Yeah. Alan, all of our required disclosures, including how we evaluate it, which is consistent with the industry, will be in our 10-Q, which is filed later today. You know, one important item to note is, you know, the gross margin item that we called out has really excluded the impairment. The $7 million impairment from our perspective is really directly related to a handful of communities that were, you know, in closeout, and we really decided to get aggressive on pricing. I think we would need to see the market deteriorate rather significantly from here for there to be significant additional impairments. Alan Ratner: Okay. I was just referring to more, you did, I think, 20% this quarter excluding impairments and capitalized interest. Interest is running about a point and a half, so that's more like 18.5%. Less the 14% SG&A. That's just how I was getting there. Scott Dixon: Yeah. Correct. And one, you know, one little note just on that, on the specific GAAP requirement of impairment, you ignore the SG&A. It's just direct cost in and out. So it's really much more akin to your gross margin than your pre-tax. Alan Ratner: Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate that. Thanks, guys. Scott Dixon: Yep. Alan Ratner: Thank you. Operator: Your fourth question comes from Michael Rehaut of JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Andrew Azzi: Hi, everyone. This is Andrew Azzi on for Michael Rehaut. Appreciate you taking my questions. Just wanted to kind of appreciate all the color you've given so far. Would love to drill down if possible on, you know, I think we talked about July a bit. Would love to get a sense of what happened April, May to June, and given the volatility with rates, what you were saying in terms of your sales pace versus your expectations month to month? Scott Dixon: Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, pretty consistent with some of the items that we outlined in the prepared remarks. We saw, you know, we saw sequential improvement from a sales perspective throughout the month. So May was significantly better than April, and June was significantly better than May. I think consistent with maybe some of the commentary that you may have heard from others, the end of June was certainly very strong, taking advantage of some of the dips in rates. And then we've paused at the beginning of July, and it's been a little bit choppy so far within July. And so that's from a cadence perspective really where we've been at from a sales perspective. Andrew Azzi: Got it. And then in terms of potential incremental Canadian tariffs on lumber, can you provide maybe your exposure to Canadian lumber versus US sourced? And what's the impact you'd expect? Scott Dixon: Yeah. Absolutely. So, obviously, difficult to tell the exact impact at the moment. We need to wait to see until, you know, until those additional tariffs are potentially finalized here. We generally source between 20% and 30% of our lumber from Canada. You know, it's market dependent. But from a general rule, that would be our exposure. And certainly, we're not seeing that currently running through any cost, but we'll just have to see where that lands going forward. Andrew Azzi: Got it. Much appreciated. I'll pass it on. Thank you. Scott Dixon: Absolutely. Operator: As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star zero. For your next question, Ken Zener of Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead. Ken Zener: You there, Ken? Scott Dixon: Okay. We can't hear you if you're on. Dan, we heard you. Ken Zener: Oh, you did? Hey, Ken. Scott Dixon: Yeah. We got you now. Ken Zener: Thank you for the time. So orders on a community count more attributable to quarter-end inventory. Excuse me. Community growth. So I understand that. But the orders are still down, like, in the West quite a bit. And the mountains specifically. Could you kind of provide details around, you know, what that driver was versus, you know, the baseline that you guys were, I don't know. Thank you. Coming less bad than you guys printed, I guess, is what I'm asking. Like, what, what, yeah. That's, that's a over that. Scott Dixon: Sure. I mean, there's a handful of factors, obviously, that's playing itself into it. You know, from an overall perspective, you know, the way the quarter really played itself out from the demand perspective, you know, the sequential growth from, you know, May to April and, obviously, June to April. It was something that we experienced, but, you know, April certainly was off from March. So that was part of the driver from an absorption standpoint. The other item that we called out really in our prepared remarks is really the significant amount of the community count did come online in the back half of the year or, excuse me, at the quarter. With most of it really coming online in June. And so that's some of the dynamics that you're seeing flow themselves through mountain in particular. Ken Zener: So the 51, I assume, quarter-end community count versus 47, which is up. Right. You're suggesting of the, or not suggesting. I'm not sure. Pin you down here, but with orders down, contracts down 39%, is that fair to think that over half of that was attributable to an average community count being below the quarter-end community count? What you're suggesting? Scott Dixon: Yeah. Without quantifying that specifically and potentially we can walk through some of the details, our majority of the community count growth coming in mountain occurred in June, and therefore, it wasn't open throughout the entire period. Ken Zener: Yeah. So it's not to be that's where it was most expressed is what you're saying. The late or the community average community count. That's not necessarily a mountain Century Communities issue. It's just that community count not being available there. Okay. Do appreciate that. You guys have any comment on what you think if I wasn't mistaken, did I hear you correctly saying your unit's under construct, well, with your starts at 2,485. Is that correct? Scott Dixon: That's right. Ken Zener: Do you expect kind of the starts to reflect the orders growth as it has been more or less into the back half? Scott Dixon: More or less. Yes. More or less. Ken Zener: And then more or less, what do you guys expect your inventory, you know, your unit center construction, right, so wherever you are now, which you don't disclose, but, like, starts closing so we can kind of get there. Do you, what, what's the magnitude that you expect that to be down in the fourth quarter year over year? Scott Dixon: Okay. And I think, I think in all honesty, it's really, yeah. I think, I think to some degree, it's dependent on where the market is in terms of our ability to continue to drive starts. So, okay. We start, we began the year with, with obviously a little bit of a higher level of units that are under construction and or finished. And is really focused on working those down to levels that we feel, we feel quite frankly very confident in putting more units out into the market for the back half of the year to the extent that we believe to, we believe that the market continues to support that level of starts. So it'll be market dependent and demand dependent on an individual market basis. Ken Zener: Excellent. And the last question, which I've been asking builders is, it's the census data has inventory, you know, for sale. Three categories, complete, under construction, not started. But do you guys respond to census bureau requests for, you know, inventory or sales or any of that type of information? Do you provide them data is what I'm asking you? Scott Dixon: Ken, I don't believe we provide them specific inventory data from a census on a regular basis. Ken Zener: Thank you very much. It's interesting. I don't know what builder is. So it's getting to be interesting. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Scott Dixon: Absolutely. Operator: Your next question comes from Alex Barron of Housing Research Center. Please go ahead. Alex Barron: Yes. Thank you. I think I heard you say that the build times currently are around four months. That's correct. Scott Dixon: Correct. Alex Barron: I was wondering, is there any room for improvement from that level? Do you feel that's about as efficient as the business gets? And if there is, is there any other initiatives you guys are potentially trying, such as vertical integration or, you know, acquiring certain trades or anything like that? Rob Francescon: So as far as acquiring certain trades, we have not been looking at that. But in terms of improving cycle times, you know, sequentially, each quarter, they've gotten better. Candidly, month by month, they've gotten better. You know, that four months is a consolidated average. We have homes, some that are being built in the low 70-day range. Certainly a lot in the 80 and 90. And we have other product-specific and basement markets where the time frame may be a little bit longer than that four-month period. But on average, that's what we're doing. We do see that potentially even getting better over time. But that has been a bright spot that we're continuing to reduce that down. Alex Barron: Got it. And as far as, you know, incentives, especially as it pertains to finished spec inventory, are you guys primarily just doing rate buy downs, or are you also having to do price cuts? Scott Dixon: It's a mixture of both. Certainly our, you know, our most aggressive opportunities on the mortgage side are generally geared towards our slow-moving communities, aged inventory, and or consumer profiles that need that assistance. It generally is a mix of both, however. Alex Barron: Got it. Well, best of luck, guys. Scott Dixon: Thank you. Rob Francescon: Thanks, Alex. Operator: There are no further questions at this time. We will now turn the call over to Dale. Please continue. Dale Francescon: Thank you, everyone, on the call. Thank you for your time today and interest in Century Communities. Our team members, thank you for your hard work, dedication to Century, and commitment to our valued homebuyers. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Where to invest $1,000 right now When our analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,034%* — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. They just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now, available when you join Stock Advisor. *Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025 This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. Parts of this article were created using Large Language Models (LLMs) based on The Motley Fool's insights and investing approach. It has been reviewed by our AI quality control systems. Since LLMs cannot (currently) own stocks, it has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. 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Reigning champion Colton Herta takes pole at Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto
Reigning champion Colton Herta takes pole at Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto

National Post

time4 days ago

  • Automotive
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Reigning champion Colton Herta takes pole at Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto

Defending champion Colton Herta has earned pole position at the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto. Article content He did the 11-turn, 2.874-kilometre course around Exhibition Place in downtown Toronto in 59.8320 seconds. Article content IndyCar Series points leader Alex Palou was second, 0.2758 seconds behind Herta. Article content Marcus Armstrong and Will Power were third and fourth respectively. Article content Scott Dixon, a four-time champion in Toronto, was 11th in qualifying but IndyCar announced Friday that he'd earned a six-position starting grid penalty for an unapproved engine change following last week's race at Iowa Speedway. Article content Article content

What is the start time for the IndyCar race at Ontario Honda Dealers Indy in Toronto?
What is the start time for the IndyCar race at Ontario Honda Dealers Indy in Toronto?

Indianapolis Star

time6 days ago

  • Automotive
  • Indianapolis Star

What is the start time for the IndyCar race at Ontario Honda Dealers Indy in Toronto?

The IndyCar Series heads back to the streets, this time in downtown Toronto for the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy, a 90-lap race on a 1.786-mile layout. The series is in the middle of brutally busy July, with five races over four weekends. Pato O'Ward and series points leader Alex Palou won on the Iowa Speedway short oval last weekend. Scott Dixon has four wins on this layout, most recently in 2022. Will Power has three and Josef Newgarden two. Push-to-pass: 200 seconds total in increments of up to 20 seconds. Tire allotment: Five sets primary and five sets alternate to be used during the event weekend. Rookie drivers may use one additional set of primary tires. Teams must use one set of primary and one set of new (sticker) alternate tires for at least two laps in the race. Nathan Brown is your best IndyCar follow, and keep up with coverage throughout the season with IndyStar's motorsports newsletter. Alex Palou, has won seven races, Kyle Kirkwood three, and Scott Dixon and Pato O'Ward one each. Palou's 129-point lead over second-place O'Ward is more than two races of max points. Pole-sitter Colton Herta edged front-row starter Kyle Kirkwood at the finish line, with Scott Dixon completing the podium. Will Power and Colton Herta are tied for 8th with 244 points. Who comes out of Toronto ahead? We've seen it twice this year, and it's largely been the case the last couple years: The Andretti Global street course package is on another level, as we saw last year with Herta and teammate Kyle Kirkwood ran 1-2 for all but four laps of the 85 run on the streets of Toronto (with those four solely coming through pit exchanges). Herta won the last race here and has two poles and three podiums in his last three starts at Toronto. Though there's always a chance that disaster strikes, I'm going to take the odds on Herta. Santino Ferrucci and David Malukas, A.J. Foyt teammates, are tied for 10th with 237 points. Who comes out of Toronto ahead? Although Ferrucci has finished six of the eight road or street course races better than Malukas, the performance I saw across at the Detroit Grand Prix weekend (other than Malukas' tap to the rear of Alex Palou that earned Malukas an essentially day-ending penalty) leads me to think he has an edge. If he can keep his nose clean and this race doesn't deliver too much chaos — like the ways in which Ferrucci flipped the script for his podiums at Detroit and Road America — I like Malukas this weekend. Josef Newgarden and Christian Rasmussen are tied for 14th with 207 points. Who comes out of Toronto ahead? Before a mechanical failure ended his day at Detroit, Rasmussen was on for an incredibly strong showing — and then again, Newgarden had to fight hard just for a 9th-place finish there. Both these drivers — and their cars and teams — have shown volatility lately, in terms of results. So give me the veteran driver and more historically successful team. I don't think it's that ever-elusive 2025 win Newgarden continues to hunt, but a top-10 is reasonable, and I'm marginally less confident Rasmussen can match it. (All times ET; all IndyCar sessions are on IndyCar Live, IndyCar Radio and Sirius XM Channel 218) 3 p.m.: IndyCar practice, FS2 10:30 a.m.: IndyCar practice, FS1 2:30 p.m.: IndyCar qualifying, FS1 8:30 a.m.: IndyCar warmup, FS1 Noon: IndyCar race, Fox TV: Coverage begins at noon ET, Sunday, July 20, 2025, on Fox. Green flag is scheduled for 12:22 p.m. Will Buxton is the play-by-play voice, with analysts James Hinchcliffe and Townsend Bell. Kevin Lee and Jack Harvey are the pit reporters. Fox Sports app. Watch free with a Fubo trial IndyCar Nation is on SiriusXM Channel 218, IndyCar Live and the IndyCar Radio Network (check affiliates for each race) Friday: Sunny with highs in the mid 70s. Saturday: Partly cloudy and highs in the upper 70s. Sunday: Partly cloudy and a high around 80. The 2025 IndyCar Series schedule includes 17 races, all televised on Fox. (Times are ET; %-downtown street course, &-road course, *-oval) March 2, St. Petersburg, Florida % (Winner: Alex Palou) March 23, Thermal, California & (Winner: Alex Palou) April 13, Long Beach, California % (Winner: Kyle Kirkwood) May 4, Birmingham, Alabama & (Winner: Alex Palou) May 10, Indianapolis & (Winner: Alex Palou) May 25, Indianapolis 500 * (Winner: Alex Palou) June 1, Detroit % (Winner: Kyle Kirkwood) June 15, St. Louis * (Winner: Kyle Kirkwood) June 22, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin & (Winner: Alex Palou) July 6, Lexington, Ohio & (Winner: Scott Dixon) July 12, Newton, Iowa * (Winner: Pato O'Ward) July 13, Newton, Iowa * (Winner: Alex Palou) July 20, Toronto %, noon July 27, Monterey, California &, 3 p.m. Aug. 10, Portland &, 3 p.m. Aug. 24, Milwaukee *, 2 p.m. Aug. 31, Nashville *, 2:30 p.m. (Team and drivers; *-Indianapolis 500 only)

Scott Dixon second as Alex Palou chalks up another Indycar win
Scott Dixon second as Alex Palou chalks up another Indycar win

RNZ News

time13-07-2025

  • Automotive
  • RNZ News

Scott Dixon second as Alex Palou chalks up another Indycar win

Alex Palou has won his sevnth Indycar event for the season. File pic. Photo: AFP Evergreen New Zealand racing driver Scott Dixon has finished second to Alex Palou, who has claimed his seventh Indycars title of the season with a win in Iowa. Kiwi Marcus Armstrong had his first podium of the season, with third place in the IndyCar Farm to Finish 275, his sixth top-10 finish in a row. But Scott McLaughlin's race was over before it really started, eliminated in a crash on the first lap. It was a 1-2 finish for Chip Ganassi Racing, but Palou had to withstand a strong challenge on the final lap from Dixon, who had his first victory for the season a week earlier in Mid-Ohio. Palou won by 0.528sec on the tight 1.43km Iowa Speedway course, benefitting by taking a pit stop while a caution flag was out. He had been in third place, but his break was a lucky one as it disadvantaged leader American Josef Newgarden who had emerged from the pit lane with a yellow flag out, a situation that happened twice to him during the race. With 11 laps to go, Palou had the lead and Dixon edged past Armstrong in second. And it remained that way until the finish line. "I cannot really believe it, honestly, and winning here is super special. I struggled on short ovals for so long. Super happy. Another win. Seven wins in one year is insane," said Palou on the Sky Sport broadcast. Dixon was pleased with his effort after finishing ninth in the first race on the track on Sunday. He said he was proud at how his team "had thrown the kitchen sink'' in getting the car ready after issues on Sunday. "We weren't sure how it was going to go,'' Dixon said after the race. "We needed a longer race today.'' Armstrong was thrilled with his first podium finish of the season for Meyer-Shank Racing. "We made it happen today," he said. "We are getting better every single race, I'm gelling with my crew better every race." McLaughlin had been hoping to follow up his fourth placing on Sunday, but it all turned bad when he was unable to avoid Devlin DeFrancesco's car which spun out suddenly in front of him. McLaughlin's car cannoned into the wall and he was unable to continue. "It sucks. I was really excited for today,'' McLaughlin said. It was a bad day for Team Penske with Will Power having to retire from the race after his car lost power. Palou extended his lead in the driver standings. He now has 515 points, ahead of Pato O'Ward, who won Sunday's race, on 386 with Dixon third on 342. Armstrong, who finished ninth on Sunday, is seventh with 267 points, while McLaughlin is 12th with 234.

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