Q2 2022 Century Communities Inc Earnings Call
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Greetings. Welcome to Century Communities, 2nd quarter 2022 earnings conference call.
All lines will be on listen-only mode throughout the presentation. We will have a question and answer session at the end of the presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Tyler Langton, Senior Vice President. Thank you, sir. You may begin. You may begin. Thank you, sir.
Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today for Century Communities Earnings Conference call for the second quarter, 2022. Before the call begins, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this call are not based on historical information and may constitute forward-looking statements.
These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described or implied in the forward-looking statements.
Certain of these risks and uncertainties can be found under the heading Risk Factors in the company's 2021 Annual Report on Form 10-K as supplemented by our other SEC filings.
Our SEC filings are available at www. SEC.gov and on our website at www.CentricCommunities.com.
The company undertakes no duty to update any forward looking statements that are made during this call. Additionally, certain non- GAAP financial measures will be discussed on this conference call. The company will be discussed on this conference call.
The company's presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Management will be available after the call should you have any questions that have not get answered.
Posting the call today are Dale Francescan, Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer, Rob Francescan, Co-Chief Executive Officer and President, and David Messinger, Chief Financial Officer.
Following today's prepared remarks, we'll open the line up for questions, but that I will turn the call over to Dale.
Thank you, Tyler, and good afternoon, everyone.
We're very pleased with our record-setting performance this quarter, including $214 million in pre-tax income, the highest in our history, net income of $159 million, a second quarter record, and diluted earnings per share of $4.78, equaling the company record we established in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The achieved levels of pre-tax income, net income, and earnings per share represented increases of 40%, 35%.
and 38% respectively from the prior year quarter.
Our focus on operational fundamentals enabled us to produce another quarter of strong gross margins of 28.2% and adjusted gross margins of 29.4%.
which were only 10 basis points below the highest in our history. Second quarter even up increased 33% year over year to a second quarter record of $230 million. To a second quarter record of $230 million.
During the quarter, we delivered 2,713 homes for $1.1 billion in revenues at an average sales price of $418,000 with deliveries generally flat year over year while our average sales price was up 15%.
Total revenues were $1.2 billion, a second quarter record.
Backlog at quarter-end consisted of 4,767 sold homes valued at $2 billion, year-over-year increases of 7% and 12% respectively.
Net new contracts declined to 2,233 homes as the sharp increase in mortgage rates and overall uncertainty caused some home buyers to pause their plans to acquire a home as the quarter progressed.
We have seen this understandable and predictable pattern many times before, with the most recent being in the latter part of 2018.
given the strong underlying demographics that still exist.
We expect buyers who return to the market as they adjust to these changes and continue to make decisions around their careers, marriage, and children that so often lead to the purchase of a new home. This
The summer season for home buying is typically the slowest period of the year. The summer season is typically the slowest period of the year.
and we expect that to be especially true this year.
We are also seeing potential home buyers looking for homes that are closer to completion in order to lock in their financing options.
We do not have a significant number of available homes with near-term completions and coupled with the summer months.
We expect our third quarter sales to be consistent with the second quarter.
While we still have the ability to raise prices in certain communities,
Most of our subdivisions have begun utilizing incentives more than they have over the past two years.
Year to date, our incentives have averaged 80 basis points of average sales price.
versus 380 basis points in 2018.
and we expect incentives to return to those levels.
The type and amount of incentive differs by community and by market.
We have seen mortgage rate buy downs.
Forward rate commitments and rate locks to be effective in getting buyers in the door and signing contracts.
We are not typically reducing base prices and existing communities, but are carefully reviewing them prior to opening a new community.
While inventory levels have started to increase for the industry as a whole, these increases are off very low levels and absolute inventory is still quite low.
Months of supply for both new and resale homes in most of our markets remain well below the national average of 2.6, and rental rates are continuing to increase, which we believe will be positive for home purchases.
We are also encouraged to see that on a year-over-year basis, community counts in most of our markets are down significantly.
including Atlanta, down 11 percent, Charlotte, down 13 percent, and Houston, down 10 percent, according to John Verne's real estate consulting.
further limiting supply and providing pricing stability.
We are well positioned to navigate the current headwinds, given our focus on delivering affordable homes and the flexibility inherent in our model. And the flexibility inherent in our model.
By offering homes at the lower end of the pricing spectrum, we can appeal to the largest number of potential home buyers and to the home buyers they're buying more out of need.
compared to a move-up buyer making a discretionary purchase.
Our spec-based model allows us to increase or reduce starts and react quickly to changes in market conditions. and react quickly to changes in market conditions.
The exception of new communities, we are generally matching our starts pace with the sales cadence in a subdivision.
In the second quarter, we continued our goal of returning profits to our shareholders.
by maintaining our quarterly cash dividend of 20 cents per share and repurchasing approximately 791,000 shares of our common stock.
at an average price of $45.42 per share.
The share repurchases were at a cost equal to 75% of ending book value as of June 30, 2022.
Our record second quarter results are due to the innovation, commitment, and resilience of our talented teams across the country. that
They continue to support our mission of providing our customers a home for every dream, and we thank them for their contributions.
I'll now turn the call over to Rob to discuss our operating results and plans going forward in more detail.
Thank you, Dale, and good afternoon, everyone. As Dale mentioned, our team performed well this quarter, and we believe the flexibility of Century's operating model and focus on delivering affordably priced homes positively positions the company moving forward.
We also benefit from the strategic operational initiatives that have been implemented over the last several years and our business model is well suited to address the headwinds from the current interest rate environment.
Our homebuyers continue to have a healthy financial profile. Century Communities and Century Completes homebuyers had respective average FICO scores of 740 and 715 based on loans originated in the second quarter.
Additionally, 75% of our deliveries in the quarter were priced below FHA limits, demonstrating our strong positioning within the affordable new home category, and allowing us to target the widest range of potential buyers in any given market.
We did see the expected increase in our cancellation rates to 19% in the second quarter, which is still below the 26% cancellation rates we experienced in 2018 and 2019. We experienced in 2018 and 2019.
The cancellations we experienced were primarily financing related.
We continue to qualify buyers at a rate that is 50 basis points above the current interest rate.
On an ongoing basis, we evaluate and stress test all buyers in our backlog without a rate lock at interest rates up to 6 percent, and we are encouraged that only a small percentage of buyers needed to be canceled since they would no longer qualify at these higher rates.
At the end of the quarter, we had only 44 completed and unsold homes over our 45 plus markets.
We will continue to carefully monitor changes in market conditions going forward and will generally match our starts with our sales so that we are in a position to sell and deliver homes to buyers as they come back into the market without taking undue risk.
The home building industry continues to be challenged by municipal and utility delays, supply chain issues, and trade shortages. However, during the second quarter, we saw our construction cycle times improve as various materials and labor are becoming more readily available.
We are beginning to experience some easing of input costs, especially lumber and wood products, and expect further improvements in both cycle times and input costs in the back half of the year.
Centuries total community count at quarter ends stood at 213. And we have the ability to increase this number throughout the back half of this year. Reaching as many as 240 to 250 communities by year end.
However, we intend to be mindful of local market conditions and retain the optionality of postponing initial vertical construction starts in new communities if warranted. B ???????
We ended the quarter with approximately 76,000 lots with roughly 47% owned and 53% controlled, and a total lot pipeline down from the first quarter, a 2022 level of just over 85,000 lots.
Since we have a disciplined approach towards land spend, we stepped away from a number of deals that no longer met our stringent investment standards.
Reducing our acquisition commitments by over $500 million, and our total potential land spend commitments by significantly more.? overhead Getting me that fight for all the crisis beyond lately programs that have been significantly more.
While our write-off of feasibility costs and deposits exceeded $2 million in the quarter, our focus on controlling lots versus owning lots gives us the ability to exit transactions at acceptable costs when the market adjusts.
Our large footprint and presence in over 45 markets affords us the ability to look at a wide range of land deals and be extremely selective about where we invest our capital.
Going forward, we expect it to continue to adjust our land spend based on market conditions.
We are pleased with our performance as quarter and remain confident we are well positioned to continue generating exceptional financial and operating results into the future.
I'll now turn the call over to Dave to discuss our financial results in more detail.
Thank you, Rob. During the second quarter of 2022, net income increased 35% to a second quarter record $158.7 million or $4.78 per diluted share compared to $117.9 million or $3.47 per diluted share in the prior year quarter.
Pre-tax income was 213.6 million, a year-over-year increase of 40% and a company record. Pre-tax income was 213.6 million, a year-over-year increase of 40% and a company record.
FOME sales revenues for the second quarter grew to $1.1 billion, a 13% increase compared to year-ago levels.
This improvement in revenues was driven by a 15% year over year increase in our average sales price to $418,000 and the delivery of 2,713 homes in the quarter.
In the second quarter, net new contracts across our regions were 2,233.
As Dale previously mentioned, this decline was primarily due to the impact that the sharp increase in interest rates had on potential homebuyers, particularly in the latter part of the quarter.
Versus the prior year, we increased our quarter-end backlog 7% to 4,767 homes, valued at $2 billion, a 12% increase.
In the second quarter, adjusted home building gross margin percent was 29.4% compared to 25.7% in the prior year quarter.
Homebuilding growth margin percentage improved to 28.2% compared to 23.9% for the same period last year.
Both Gross Margin and Adjusted Gross Margin were only off 10 basis points from the company records that were established in the first quarter of this year. The company records were only off 10 basis points from the company The company records were only off 10 basis points from the company
S-GNA as a percent of home sales revenue improved the 9.6% in the second quarter compared to 9.9% in the prior year and 10.3% in the first quarter of the year.
Pre-tax income margin was 18.3% compared to 14.6% in the prior year quarter.
During the second quarter, financial services generated $22.8 million in revenues compared to $29.9 million in the prior year quarter.
that the business captured 70% of the closings and contributed 8.6 million in pre-tax income compared to 11.7 million in the prior year quarter. The business captured 70% of the closings and contributed 8.6 million in pre-tax income and contributed 8.6 million in pre-tax income
The decrease in pre-tax income compared to the prior year period was primarily due to fewer loan originations compared to the prior year and selling loans into the secondary markets at normalized margins this year versus 2021.
In the second quarter, our tax rate was 25.7% compared to 22.5% last year due to the federal energy tax credits not being renewed for 2022.
During the quarter, we invested $35.9 million in repurchasing $790,558 shares of common stock.
leaving approximately 2 million shares available for repurchase under our current authorization.
As a reminder, in the first quarter of this year, we invested $62.4 million in repurchasing 1,013,387 shares of our common stock.
Combined, these share repurchases year-to-date have reduced our share count by over 5%.
We maintained our quarterly cash dividend of 20 cents per share this quarter after having increased it by 33% in the first quarter of this year.
Our home building debt to capital ratio was 37.1% at quarter and compared to 37.7% in the prior year.
Our net home building debt to net capital ratio was 33.6% compared to year ago levels of 23%.
This increase in net home building debt was largely driven by investments in our whip inventories during the quarter. The
The increase in WIP inventories is integral to monetizing the land we have on our balance sheet and opening our new communities.
Opening new communities will be dependent on marking conditions and should we achieve our guidance range of 240 to 250 selling communities open at year end. We will maintain this level of leverage through the balance of the year.
We ended the quarter with a strong financial position including $2 billion in stockholders equity, a 31% year-over-year increase and $820 million in total liquidity.
Our return on equity also remain near the top of the industry at 33.7%, which equal the record level from the first quarter of this year, and up from 27.6% in the year ago quarter. And up from 27.6% in the year ago quarter.
Given the industry-wide slowdown in current activity, we are reducing our full-year home delivery guidance to 10,750 to 11,750 homes.
We are reaffirming our full year home sales revenues to be in the range of 4.3 billion to 4.9 billion dollars and depending on market conditions we expect our year end selling communities to be in the range of 240 to 250.
We ended the quarter with a strong balance sheet and ample liquidity, which positions us well to continue to invest in the business and return cash to shareholders throughout cycles in the market.
With that, I'll open the line for questions. Operator.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. And for participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys.
Our first question is from Deepa Regalin with Wells Fargo. Will please proceed.
Hi, good evening, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. The waterfall was pretty steep. Can you talk through how the quarter played out, especially absorption pace for June and any color on what it is for July thus far? You mentioned sales. You mentioned sales.
would be, we should think about, say, of in Q3 to be similar to Q2, just to clarification is that orders or was that closing? or was that closing?
Sure, Deepa, this is Dale. I answered your last question. We were talking about sales.
When we look at the sales in Q2 of this year, and as compared to last year, part of it it was a very difficult comp. We had very high sales in Q2 of 2021.
But going back to the specific quarter, as the quarter went on, we saw more and more pressure in terms of the on the sales side. We saw buyers pausing their home search as they needed to digest the impact of the higher interest rates.
In many cases it's not that they can't afford the home with the higher interest rates but it's something that they need to adjust to the new norm.
And we believe that the entry-level buyer has a larger need to buy a home than a move-up buyer who may just want a larger home. And so we think that they will come back to the market sooner.
But in terms of July , we've seen pretty much the same thing we saw in the tail end of June . And that is that one, it's summer, and two, the buyers are still in that stage where they need to adjust to what the new interest rates are.
Okay, I would
and ask on gross margins. It's been pretty strong. I mean pricing has been much stronger than most of us expected. That's good news. But can you talk through other items that could have benefited gross margins or detracted gross margins in the quarter for example was lumber a benefit and also how much was incentive ahead wind, etc. Can you help us parse out the components of gross margins that actually helped or detracted?
within the quarter? Yeah. Yeah, hey, Deepa's Dave. Gross market during the quarter was obviously benefited from some strong ASP that we had. As those homes were sold in an earlier period of time. When we're looking at direct costs for the second quarter, lumber was a benefit. But we had majority of the rest of the costs and they go into a home were increasing. And so we still experienced a net increase in the second quarter, a lot of sequential basis.
compared to the first quarter. So that was kind of a headwind. And then on the incentive side, you know, we've been running about 80 basis points in the first two quarters in the year to date of 2022. Historically, that number is, you know, in the offer 300 and the three, three hundred 80 basis point range. And as Dale said, the prepared remarks, we would expect that at some point here that does incentives get back, that's that'll be a headwind for us moving forward.
Okay, one more from me if I can squeeze in. Are you able to provide your thoughts on how pricing may play out from here? You cater to the entry level first time home builder. You're probably better situated to talk about the weakness in that segment. We don't see it right now in pricing trends, but what are some of the
What would some of your thoughts be on how this might play from here? Should we expect a slow moderation in pricing or with good pricing and that falling much a little quicker and sharper from here any touch there?
Well, generally, as I said, my prepared remarks were not dropping base prices in communities. And as we open new communities, we're obviously carefully looking at what the base prices should be based on the competition and the market. Most of our incentives as opposed to price reductions are based around helping with regard to either closing costs.
or rate buy downs, that type of thing. So when we look at it, while we certainly don't have the ability across the board to raise the prices, the way we and our peers have been doing it over the recent past, we're not seeing that we would expect that there are going to be a significant drop either.
Got it. Okay, I'll pass it on. Good luck.
Thank you. Thanks, Deepa.
Our next question is from Mike Rinalt with JP Morgan. Please proceed.
Hi, this is Andrew Ozi, I'm on for microart. Congrats on the quarter. I just wanted to ask, is there, can you provide any color on the timing of that historical, and any mention that historically, it's around 300 Bips, for incentives? Is there kind of a timeline for the brand to get there?
What I was referencing was our experience back in 2018 when it was a similar time period where you had rates that spiked up and that's where the incentives ended up. We don't have any guidance out there in terms of when we're going to get from 80 basis points today to some other elevated level. We're in the market right now. We are seeing incentives back in our communities. We're just piecing it out. We're not racing to the bottom. That is taking medicine to mean Florida to this country even though massèsharing serious emissions are not really spots of Robin Hood. It is not an easy trade.
trying to utilize various incentives and various levers in order to find the right mixture in each community and each buyer that gets people across the goal line.
You know, and part of it is we're seeing that there's a real interest in the nearer-term deliveries and as a result where we have incentives, there will be more incentives on those homes where already there's more interest in them. As a result, we shouldn't have to provide as many incentives.
Thank you, that was super helpful. I'm going to pass it on. I'm going to pass it on.
Excellent, thanks.
Our next question is from Alan Ratner with Selman and Associates. Please proceed.
Hey guys, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions here. First one, maybe just sticking on the incentive topic. Dave, I think you mentioned it's been 80 basis points a year to date. I'm just curious if you have any quantifications specifically on what that is more recently in June and July . I'm assuming those have been maybe disproportionately weighted towards century complete. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like that segment might have faced some...
outsize pressure on the orders and maybe cancellations this quarter. Just curious if you could provide a little bit more color about what you're seeing specifically at Century Complete.
Yeah, the 80 basis points there is a bit of a weighting more towards the central complete product than the community's product and obviously as the quarter progressed incentives would have been ticking up if we were trying to get somebody that was in backlog trying to get them across the goal line.
Okay, great.
Second, I guess on a lot of option abandonments, first I just want to make sure these are apples to apples. It looks like you're a lot count, you're dropped by about 10,000 lots sequentially and I think you mentioned the right off with just
just only over $2 million, which seems like a pretty small deposit for that number of lots. So first of all, is that correct? And second off, I'm assuming if so, those were lots that were probably pretty early on in the due diligence process. So how are you thinking more specifically about lot options that are closer to take down, which I would imagine have larger deposits associated with them, larger Priac costs associated with them? Are you renegotiating? Are you trying to push out those take down schedule?
on the land if needed, looking at them from all angles to make sure that they meet our investment criteria going forward. And we take for $2 million, yeah, that is a modest amount for the amount of lots that we did drop. But we've looked at the pool of controlled lots, that's our business model that try to have more controlled than owned.
And that gives us that type of optionality to try to control lots at a very small dollar amount. And that's something we strive for on all of our contracts to control less deposits of dollars.
Great, thanks for that added color. If I could add a quick one in here before I hop off. Your spec count, I think you gave finished specs. Do you have the total spec count, including homes under construction and any color on where in the construction process the majority of those homes are?
Yeah, we haven't disclosed the total number of homes we have under construction across the country other than the fact that obviously we only have the 44 that were completed at the end of the quarter, so we really haven't seen any material growth in our completed spec count. And then as we look at having opened up new communities in the first and second quarter and started a number of homes in those communities, we just don't have that many homes finishing here in the third quarter that are going to be made available for sale that are really going to cater to.
what the buyers are looking for today in terms of near-term completions. Got it. Thanks for that color Dave. Appreciate it guys.
Thanks. Thank you.
Our next question is from Alex Reigel with B. Riley. Please proceed.
Yeah, thank you very much and very nice quarter challenge. Congratulations. Have you made any decisions yet that would impact your community openings in 2023?
So we're looking at that very carefully and that's kind of a day-by-day basis.
We're re-looking at every new community opening, looking at making sure we have the right offering in that community, and a litany of additional items to make sure that when we start that community it's going to be successful. So to answer your question without going into all the specifics of the things we're looking at, but yes we are looking at all new community openings.
And then, I know in the past you've changed around, I think it was the deposit requirements that you require. Have you changed those deposit requirements at all and how does that kind of influence the cancellation rate if at all? The cancellation rate if at all.
Well, we have increased our deposits really across the board. And when we look at it from the point that we are highly focused on being a spec builder, we're not carrying our backlog nearly as long as if we were on a presale basis.
So as a result, I mean our focus is making sure that we have a committed home buyer, that we have an appropriate deposit, and most importantly, that they are qualified and committed to buy the home.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Thanks Alex.
Our next question is from Jay McCannis with Wedbush. Please proceed.
Good afternoon. Thanks for seeing my questions.
The first one I had, it looks like based on the guidance, that the average closing price.
At the midpoint is in call it the low 400s now I think versus the high 380s for is that just losing some of the complete homes to cancellations or is there some is there been a geographic shift that we need to be thinking about in terms of ASP for the rest of the year.
No, I think if you look at the fact that through the first half of the year, our closing price is about $420,000. And given that we've already closed essentially a little less than half of our annual guidance at the midpoint, the math works that based on where we're seeing what we expect our mixture of complete versus our mixture of communities coming out at an ASP of $400,000 versus where we were at in the first half of the year at $420,000, the math kind of all makes sense. So, thank you.
Okay.
And then,
When you're looking at repentling these land deals, I guess what do you have to take a first assumption on right now? Is it where your base pricing's going to be? Is it the paces that you're seeing just wondering, if one is more of a concern right now or you're being more careful on one over the other?
I mean we're really looking at all avenues Jay at this point and you know it starts with you know what are we selling I mean we're home builders we want to make sure we have the right offering for what the consumer wants for that geographic location so I mean it starts with that but I mean there's so many things that go into it that we look at you know as we continue that you know stress test the lots but you know generally speaking you know we've been
You know, we got rid of the almost 10,000 lots in the control bucket that we dropped the deals that we just didn't think met our stringent criteria. And we feel comfortable going forward at this point on where we are, but we're looking at it all the time.
Go ahead.
You want that?
And then I know that complete, sorry, complete, tends to keep against the local existing home inventory rather than new home builders in the markets. I guess are you seeing in those smaller markets or you seeing an inflow board increase? Or you seeing an inflow board increase?
existing homes or condominiums for sale. I'm just wondering, you know, because we've seen it in the local markets that inventories have been up sequentially for the last couple months, and wondering if that's also in these smaller markets.
Yeah, I think generally the smaller markets operate very similarly. We are seeing that inventory is up, but they're off such low levels. And the amount that they're up is really not concerning there. They're still very low. And so when we look at it on the complete side oftentimes, we may be the only public home builder in that market. Typically other new home builders, but there are...
was the peak and incentives in 2018, maybe once go back to normal in the 2019 timeframe, where did incentives move back then versus where they are now? Where did incentives move back then versus where they are now?
I'll follow up with EJ afterwards on what a normalized level was, but it was somewhere below that.
Okay.
Okay, yep, that's all I have. Thanks again.
Thanks.
As a reminder to star one on your telephone keypad if you would like to ask a question. Our next question is from Alex Barron with Housing Research Center. Please proceed.
Yes, strong quarter, gentlemen.
I wanted to ask regarding starts, you know, how many homes did you guys start this quarter? How did that compare versus last year? And what's your general thought or approach, you know, now that things are a little softer? You know, how many homes did you guys start this quarter?
Hey Alex, it's Dave. We have historically not disclosed the number of homes under construction or the starts we have, but as we said in our prepared remarks, right now we're essentially matching our start pace with our sales in all of our existing communities.
Got it. Okay. I also wanted to ask, you know, we've heard that the builders are starting to get more inbound calls from, you know, fund and trades. I'm wondering if you guys are seeing an opportunity to get better pricing if that's the case.
Yeah, I think everybody understands right now as the industry is pivoting from where it's been the last 18 months that as more incentives are out there and profits are being challenged it's going to work its way all the way through the supply chain into direct costs into labor and we are seeing opportunities for additional trades and additional suppliers to be working with us and partnering with us in our various markets.
Okay, and if I could ask one last one, is it your sense?
that right now the slowdown is more just as some have characterized you know more like that.
Shock, you know, that people just kind of need to get used to it or is it more, in a leaning towards affordability challenges.
Our view on this is that it's...
The interest rates went up very quickly. People still have to be able to wrap their minds around that buying a home at that payment makes sense for them. From our standpoint, we're really not seeing that it's a huge affordability challenge where we do have some issues. We provided rate buy downs and other incentives on the mortgage side.
And frankly, we think that we're well positioned being at the typically at the lower end of the market, that if someone is priced out of what was a more expensive home, well then when they start looking at ours, it becomes much more affordable. So we think there's some elasticity there. And that's why we really like how we're positioned with regard to our price points.
Okay, great. Best of luck for the year. Thank you. Thank you, Alex. Thank you,
And we do have a follow-up from Jay with Wedbush. Please proceed.
Thanks for taking my follow-up. Just two questions. I guess the first one with what sounds like pretty good news on labor and input costs and cycle time coming down, how should we expect gross margins to trend in the back half of the year versus the staff and maybe year over year?
Well, I think gross margins are going to be trending down based on where we see incentives coming back into the marketplace. And this was, so I think that's gonna put some pressure on margins, the benefits that we may start realizing from trades or other suppliers and other products. If I start contracting for that now, in July , August , September , that's gonna be 23 tailwind for me. I don't know that I really realized that much benefit here in 22 from those activities.
I guess, could you quantify how much the cycle time improved and are you seeing the same improvement quarter to date in the third quarter?
Yeah, so in the second quarter we saw, we took about two to three weeks off our cycle times. So we see that as a positive trend through July . We've been experiencing the same thing. We were almost through the month and the cycle times have been pretty consistent with that.
Great.
Thanks, Jeff.
We will now turn the line back over to Dale for some brief closing remarks.
Thank you, operator. I'd like to take this opportunity once again to thank all of our team members for their incredible work and continue dedication to our valuable players.
I'd also like to thank our investors for their time today. We appreciate your continued support and investment and look forward to speaking to you again next quarter.
Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.
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