Meritage Homes MTH Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript

Motley Fool Transcribing, The Motley Fool

Thu, April 23, 2026 astatine 11:58 AM CDT 26 min read

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Thursday, April 23, 2026 astatine 11 a.m. ET

• Executive Chairman — Steven J. Hilton

• Chief Executive Officer — Phillippe Lord

• Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer — Hilla Sferruzza

With america contiguous to sermon our results are Steve Hilton, Executive Chairman, Phillippe Lord, CEO, and Hilla Sferruzza, Executive Vice President and CFO of Meritage Homes Corporation. We expect today's telephone to past astir an hour. A replay volition beryllium disposable connected our website aboriginal today. I volition present crook it implicit to Mr. Hilton. Steve?

Steven J. Hilton: Thank you, Emily. Welcome to everyone joining today's call. Today, I volition statesman with a little overview of marketplace trends and item our archetypal 4th results. Phillippe volition past sermon our strategy and supply an operational update. Finally, Hilla volition reappraisal our fiscal show and stock our 2026 forward-looking guidance. Entering 2026, we were cautiously optimistic that little involvement rates and pent-up request would construe into a coagulated show for homebuilders, balanced by much muted volatility. As you good know, a fewer weeks into the year, galore of our markets were impacted by a terrible wintertime storm, wherever income activities were halted for respective days.

As we were starting to retrieve from the mislaid days of sales, subject operations successful Iran commenced successful February, expanding involvement rates, state prices, and inflation, each of which negatively impacted user confidence. Despite these challenges, our archetypal 4th 2026 income orders totaled [inaudible], arsenic our slower absorption gait was astir afloat offset by our expanding assemblage count. While we inactive judge that semipermanent fundamentals for the location manufacture are strong, we besides admit that the existent marketplace conditions are causing imaginable homebuyers to hesitate and that capturing request for the adjacent word volition necessitate higher-than-anticipated usage of incentives.

Looking to our operations, our 60-day closing guarantee, disposable proviso of caller completed spec inventory, and year-over-year improved rhythm times contributed to different 4th with an exceptional backlog conversion complaint of 254%. We delivered 2,967 homes and location closing gross of $1.1 cardinal this quarter. However, the slower commencement to the outpouring selling play and the accrued incentives resulted successful location closing gross borderline of 17.5% and diluted EPS of $0.82 per share. As of 03/31/2026, our publication worth per stock accrued 6% twelvemonth implicit year. And with that, I volition present crook it implicit to Phillippe.