PulteGroup Q1 2025 Earnings Report

PulteGroup EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.57
• Consensus EPS: $2.47
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.10
• One Year Ago EPS: $3.10

PulteGroup Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $3.89 billion
• Expected Revenue: $3.86 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$34.76 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

PulteGroup Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 4/22/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, April 22, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:30AM ET

PulteGroup (NYSE:PHM), through its subsidiaries, primarily engages in the homebuilding business in the United States. It acquires and develops land primarily for residential purposes; and constructs housing on such land. The company also offers various home designs, including single-family detached, townhomes, condominiums, and duplexes under the Centex, Pulte Homes, Del Webb, DiVosta Homes, John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods, and American West brand names. In addition, the company arranges financing through the origination of mortgage loans primarily for homebuyers; sells the servicing rights for the originated loans; and provides title insurance policies, and examination and closing services to homebuyers. PulteGroup, Inc. was founded in 1950 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

PulteGroup Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• In Q1, PulteGroup closed 6,583 homes, achieved a 27.5% gross margin, reported net income of $523 million, and generated a 25.4% trailing-12-month return on equity.
• The company reduced spec inventory from 53% to 47% of homes in production and raised incentives to 8%, signaling a deliberate shift toward prioritizing pricing and margin over volume.
• Home-buying activity followed a normal seasonal uptick in Q1 but became more volatile in April amid mortgage rate swings and consumer uncertainty, with proposed tariffs expected to elevate construction costs by about 1% of average selling price in late 2025.
• PulteGroup now expects to deliver approximately 59,000 homes in 2025 (down slightly from prior guidance), maintain gross margins of 26%–27% in the back half, and keep SG&A at 9.5%–9.7% of home sale revenues.
• The company enters Q2 with a robust balance sheet—$1.3 billion in cash, an 11.7% debt-to-capital ratio, $1.9 billion remaining on its share buyback authorization—and controls 244,000 lots (59% optioned) to support future growth.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, and thank you for standing by. My name is Kelvin, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the PulteGroup, Inc. Q1 twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

[Operator]

After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Jim Zummer. Please go ahead.

[James Zeumer, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at PulteGroup]

Great, Calvin. Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to today's call. We look forward to discussing our first quarter operating and financial results. With me today are Ryan Marshall, President and CEO and Jim Ossowski, Executive Vice President and CFO.

[James Zeumer, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at PulteGroup]

As always, a copy of our earnings release and this morning's presentation have been posted to our corporate website at poltigroup.com. We'll also post an audio replay of this call later today. I would highlight that today's presentation includes forward looking statements about the company's expected future performance. Actual results could differ materially from those suggested by our comments today. The most significant risk factors that could affect future results are summarized as part of today's earnings release and within the accompanying presentation.

[James Zeumer, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at PulteGroup]

These risk factors and other key information are detailed in our SEC filings, including our annual and quarterly reports. Now let me turn the call over to Ryan Marshall. Ryan?

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Thanks, Jim, and good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with everyone today. In addition to discussing PulteGroup's Q1 results this morning, I will also share our views on the current macro environment and how our business model and execution against our strategic initiatives are helping us navigate today's evolving market conditions. Let me start by recognizing the incredible work our teams did in delivering PulteGroup's strong first quarter results. Given the cross currents the housing industry has encountered in 2025, we believe our results show the value of PulteGroup's proven operating model, balanced portfolio and the expertise of our local operating teams.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

In what proved to be a dynamic operating environment, we met or exceeded our guidance in delivering over 6,500 homes, gross margins of 27.5%, net income of $523,000,000 and most importantly, a trailing twelve month return on equity of 25.4%. As the country moves through economic cycles, the housing industry will inevitably encounter periods when we are experiencing changes in the operating environment. I truly believe that the balanced and highly diversified operating model that we have built over the past decade, in combination with our strategic focus on generating high returns over the housing cycle, offer important competitive advantages. Our national footprint and strategy of serving all buyer groups with a targeted offering of spec and built to order homes, along with our broader capacity to use both price and or pace to drive returns, give our operators more flexibility when navigating periods of economic transition. In the back half of 2024, many of our meetings with analysts and investors included questions about housing demand and the state of the housing cycle.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

In response to these questions, we indicated that the spring selling season of 2025 would provide the best opportunity to assess the condition of today's home buying consumer. Having reached the midway point of the spring selling season, I wanted to provide a few thoughts on what we've experienced and how we are responding. First and foremost, I strongly believe people still aspire to homeownership. And if you can provide the right value equation, they are excited to get into a new home. We saw this as the first quarter progressed and demonstrated a typical seasonal pattern with traffic, gross orders and net new orders trending higher as we move through the quarter.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Within the quarter, we also saw the level of home buying activity respond positively to the thirty year mortgage rate dropping below 7%, which allowed roughly 20% of our divisions to increase prices within many of our communities. Consistent with the relative strength we've seen among move up and active adult buyers over the past few quarters, we saw the average spend on options and lot premiums per home climb to $110,000 in Q1. This is up from the $102,000 and $107,000 in the first and fourth quarters, respectively, of last year. The financial strength of move up and active adult homebuyers is why we have purposely aligned 60% of our portfolio to serve these key buyer groups. However, the quarter also saw consumers continuing to face affordability challenges that exist for would be homebuyers in metro regions across the country.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

From the high absolute selling prices of today's homes to the resulting high monthly mortgage payments, consumers are struggling with the affordability challenges when it comes to purchasing a home. These headwinds have only been exacerbated recently by growing concerns about the potential for a slowing economy. As one of the nation's largest homebuilders, we have developed and deployed a variety of tools to help consumers overcome their personal homeownership hurdles. This includes offering new product designs and more efficient floor plans, as well as offering meaningful incentives, including programs that can offer consumers a below market rate on a full thirty year fixed rate mortgage. We leaned into incentives a little more heavily in the first quarter as we executed on our plan to reduce excess spec inventory by actively selling our in process and finished spec inventory while also adjusting our start pace to better match current demand.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

As a result, our incentive rate increased 8% for the period, but we lowered specs to 47% of production, down from 53% in the fourth quarter, while still reporting strong gross margins of 27.5%. In sum, buyer interest and activity in the first quarter were directionally in line with our planning expectations heading into the period. As we've moved from March to April, however, we have seen consumers at all price points impacted by changing macro conditions and any resulting decline in overall consumer confidence. Whether it's the volatility in the stock market, concerns about tariff induced inflation, the fluctuation in interest rates or the growing talk of recession, demand in April has been more volatile and less predictable day to day. We can certainly empathize with our customers' concerns as our business is happy to adapt and manage through constantly changing and shifting tariff landscape, the potential cost of which could be significant.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

While our Q1 build costs were effectively flat on a year over year basis, proposed tariffs had the potential to add thousands of dollars to the cost of construction. We are a builder with seventy five years of experience and a resilient operating model. And as tariffs have been imposed or proposed, our cycle tested procurement teams have developed and begin implementing response strategies. Let me now turn the tallow call over to Jim Wissowski. You will recall that in February, Jim officially assumed his responsibilities as PulteGroup's chief financial officer.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

I'm excited to have him in his new role, and I know that our organization will benefit greatly from Jim's leadership and experience. After his remarks, I will offer some additional thoughts on how we plan to manage our business given the current operating environment. Jim?

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

Thank you, Ryan, and good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to review PulteGroup's quarterly results. In the first quarter, our net new orders totaled 7,765 homes, which is a decrease of 7% from the first quarter of twenty twenty four. Lower orders in the period were driven primarily by a 10% decrease in net new orders per store, which is partially offset by the 3% increase in our average community count to nine sixty one for the quarter. Notably, the cancellation rate as a percentage of starting backlog increased only slightly to 11% compared to 10% in the prior year.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

Specific to the quarter, we would say that demand conditions followed a pretty typical seasonal pattern, with net new orders increasing as the quarter progressed. On a sequential basis, net new orders increased 26% from the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four. This increase is, however, below historic averages, reflects a consumer that is carefully assessing the high cost of homeownership and, more recently, concerns about the economy and overall employment conditions. On a year over year basis, net new orders by first time buyers were down 11%, move up buyers were down 4%, and active adult buyers declined 5%. We continue to realize meaningful relative outperformance among our move up and active adult consumers as they have greater financial flexibility and can more easily adjust to market changes.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

That being said, the extreme volatility in the financial markets can cause even these consumers to pause when making a large purchase. Moving from orders to closings, home sale revenues in the first quarter totaled $3,700,000,000 down 2% from the $3,800,000,000 of revenues generated last year. Lower home sale revenues for the period were the result of a 7% decrease in closings to 6,583 homes, largely offset by a 6% increase in average sales price of $570,000 By buyer group, the breakdown in closings in the first quarter was thirty nine percent first time, 40% move up, and 21% active adult. In the first quarter of last year, our closings were comprised of forty two percent first time, 35% move up, and 23% active adult. As we have discussed on prior calls, we have experienced a modest decline in the percentage of closings from active adult buyers driven by the closeout of several Del Webb communities for the past twelve months twelve plus months.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

I'm happy to report that we are extremely pleased with buyer response to recent Del Webb openings in Cleveland, Indianapolis and Southern California. We are equally excited about the additional Webb community openings coming later this year. Closings from these new web communities will be more heavily weighted towards 2026 and beyond. Getting these communities open for sales is a critical first step. Based on sales and closings activities in the period, we ended the quarter with a backlog of 11,335 homes, which is down 16% from last year.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

On a dollar basis, our backlog was $7,200,000,000 which is down 12% compared with last year's first quarter. As Ryan mentioned earlier, we adjusted our starts pace as part of a process to lower spec inventory in alignment with our target range. In the first quarter, we started approximately 6,700 homes, which is down from the approximately 7,500 homes we started in both Q1 and Q4 of last year. Reflective of this action, we ended the first quarter with 16,548 homes in production, of which 7,840 were spec units. In just one quarter, we reduced our spec count by over 900 homes while lowering our spec percentage from 53% to 47% of inventory.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

This moves us closer to our target range of 40% to 45% of overall units in production. Of our spec units, 1,800 were completed at quarter end, and we expect finished spec to continue trending lower in the slowdown in our start space. The goal in aggressively managing our production pipeline is to more effectively balance the need to have units available to meet immediate buyer demand while still selling from a position of strength within our communities. In the current environment, we believe prioritizing price and margin over volume makes the most strategic sense. Based on recent sales paces and the mix of units under construction, we expect to deliver between 414,800 closings in the second quarter.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

While buyer demand over the next few months will be a key determinant, given the more than 16,000 units we have under production and cycle times of approximately one hundred and ten days, we currently expect to deliver between 59,000 homes for the full year, slightly below our prior guidance of 31,000. Embedded within our updated delivery guide is our expectation that quarterly community count will be 3% to 5% higher in 2025 than in the comparable prior year period. Consistent with our first quarter results and our previous guidance, we currently expect the average sales price to closings to be in the range of 560,000 to $570,000 in each of the remaining three quarters. Continuing down the income statement. Our gross margin in the first quarter was 27.5%, which is flat on a sequential basis from the fourth quarter, but down from a very strong Q1 of twenty twenty four.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

While sales incentives increased to 8% in the quarter, gross margins in the period benefited from a favorable mix of homes closed both in terms of geography and buyer group. As it relates to gross margins going forward, we continue to expect gross margins in the second quarter to be in the range of 26.5% to 27%, and we now expect gross margins in the third and fourth quarters to be in the range of 26% to 26.5%, down slightly from our prior range of 26.5% to 27%. Our guide on gross margin assumes incentives remain elevated at the elevated levels experienced in the first quarter. Further, gross margins in the back half of the year reflect the estimated impact of tariffs that have been imposed, which are expected to increase our house costs by an estimated 1% of average selling price. In the first quarter, we reported SG and A expense of $393,000,000 or 10.5% of home sale revenues, which compares with prior year reported SG and A expense of $358,000,000 or 9.4 percent of home sale revenues.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

Reported prior year SG and A expense includes a pretax insurance benefit of $27,000,000 Based on anticipated closing volumes, we now expect SG and A expense for the full year 2025 to be in the range of 9.5 to 9.7% of home sale revenue. Given the uncertainties of the current operating environment, we continue to carefully assess SG and A expenditures as we seek to maintain an appropriate overhead structure. Our financial services operations reported first quarter pretax income of $36,000,000 compared with $41,000,000 in the prior year. The lower pretax income primarily reflects the impact of lower closing volumes within the company's homebuilding operations. Capture rate in the quarter increased to 86%, up from 84% last year.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

For the first quarter, our reported pretax income was $681,000,000 and we recorded a tax expense of $158,000,000 or an effective tax rate of 23.2%. Our first quarter effective tax rate was benefited by renewable energy tax credits and stock compensation deductions reported in the period. At this time, we continue to expect our tax rate to be approximately 24.5%, excluding the impact of any discrete period specific tax events. For our first quarter, we reported net income of $523,000,000 or $2.57 per share. In the first quarter of twenty twenty four, reported net income of $663,000,000 or $3.1 per share.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

Prior year results are inclusive of $65,000,000 or $0.23 per share in pretax benefits related to the sale of a joint venture and the aforementioned insurance benefit. Earnings per share for the quarter was calculated based on $2.00 4,000,000 diluted shares, which is down 5% from the prior year as we continue to systematically repurchase our shares. In the first quarter of twenty twenty five, we repurchased 2,800,000.0 shares for $300,000,000 or an average price of $108.3 per share. As noted in this morning's release, we ended the first quarter with $1,900,000,000 remaining under our existing share repurchase authorization. In addition to repurchasing our shares, in the first quarter, we allocated $1,200,000,000 to land acquisition and development.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

In Q1, '50 '2 percent of our spend was associated with the development of our existing land assets. As Ryan noted, given today's macro uncertainties, we are asking our land teams to review project returns and confirm they still meet our hurdle rates given changing market conditions. We are confident that in this type of operating environment, our disciplined underwriting process will serve us well as it is done during prior periods of uncertainty. Given our current pace of sales and starts, we now expect our land investment in 2025 to be approximately $5,000,000,000 We remain positive on the long term outlook for housing, but we are prepared to adjust our near term land spend in response to changes up or down in buyer demand. While we are slowing projected land spend, we are still prepared to use our financial strength to capitalize on land opportunities that could develop during these choppier market conditions.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

Based on the updated expectations for our homebuilding operations, we continue to expect operating cash flow generation for the full year to be approximately $1,400,000,000 We have such flexibility because we already control a strong land pipeline that can support the future growth of our business platform. At the end of the first quarter, PulteGroup had 244,000 lots under control, of which 59% were controlled via option. In just the past year, we have increased our option lot count by almost 30% while reducing our owned lot count at the same time. I want to underscore that whether these land options are with the underlying land seller or one off transactions with a land banker, our ability to mitigate market risk is as important as the rate of return when assessing each transaction. On a deal by deal basis, we continue to strike balance in evaluating the profitability and risk management opportunities that might result from optioning the underlying land parcel.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

And finally, I am pleased to say that PulteGroup remains in an exceptionally strong financial position as it ended the quarter with a debt to capital ratio of 11.7% with $1,300,000,000 of cash, Further validating the strength of our operating and financial positions, Moody's recently upgraded our senior unsecured notes to DAA1. Now let me turn the call back to Ryan for some final comments.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Thanks, Jim. Given our backlog, units under production and current build cycle, we now expect to deliver between 59,000 homes in 2025, assuming home buying demand is sufficient and in alliance with our prioritizing price over pace to drive near term returns. As Jim detailed, we lowered our starts pace in the first quarter by approximately 10%. Our strategy has always been about balancing price and pace to drive higher returns. Rather than try to chase a volume number, we will continue with our efforts to reduce any excess spec inventory and move closer to our target of 40% to 45%.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

We will remain agile and are prepared to make further adjustments up or down to our starts pace in response to changes in buyer demand. For PulteGroup, balancing price and pace with a bias towards price has resulted in gross margin being an important driver of our returns. Our Q1 gross margin of 27.5% is reflective of our approach. In addition to driving top tier returns, our industry leading gross margin gives our divisions more room to maneuver in managing their communities on a day to day basis. In 2024, we invested $5,300,000,000 in land acquisition and development and entered 2025 with plans to increase our land spend to $5,500,000,000 Given greater macroeconomic uncertainty, we are recalibrating our land spend and expect it will be closer to $5,000,000,000 Given the strength of our existing land pipeline, deferring a small percentage of our land acquisition spend will not impact our ability to grow our operating platform in the future.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

For any changes we will implement over the near term in response to evolving demand conditions, what won't change is our focus on delivering high returns over the housing cycle. As we have demonstrated working through the myriad of macro challenges of the past five years, generating high returns requires decision making that is consistently in alignment with long term goals and objectives. We have remained disciplined in our business practices while making prudent adjustments such as moderating our starts pace in response to changing market conditions as we work to successfully navigate the current environment. We continue to believe in the long term demand dynamics within the housing industry. In a country that has a growing population and has already short several million housing units, it is reasonable to expect that demand will be there in the future.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

As Jim suggested earlier, disruptions in the marketplace can create exciting opportunities that have the potential to accelerate future performance. We certainly have the balance sheet strength to take advantage of any such opportunities should they emerge. In closing, I want to highlight that we've worked hard over the past decade to build a business platform that is arguably unmatched in terms of its presence across major markets and buyer groups. Our performance over time has demonstrated the competitive advantages of such a portfolio in driving high returns and navigating through market changes. Further, we've shown our commitment to intelligently allocate capital to support the growth of PulteGroup, while consistently returning funds to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

And finally, I want to again thank our entire organization for their efforts in delivering an unmatched home buying experience to our customers. We don't talk about it enough, but I want to recognize our divisions for reaching record build quality and record net promoter scores, all while all while creating a culture that once again put PulteGroup on Fortune's top 100 best companies to work for list for the fifth year in a row. You are truly the best in the business. Now let me turn the call over to Jim Zummer. Thanks, Ryan.

[James Zeumer, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at PulteGroup]

We're now prepared to open the call to questions so we can get to as many questions as possible during the remaining time of this call. We ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Thank you. And I'll now ask the operator to open up Q and A.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question comes from the line of John Lovallo of UBS. Please go ahead.

[John Lovallo, Analyst at UBS Group]

Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one I just wanted to kind of zone in on the second half margin expectations and maybe a two parter here. I I guess, the incentives on orders in the first quarter consistent with the 8% that were on deliveries? And then can you also provide any color on the two half or the second half tariff impact that you're expecting, the total dollars for home, which products and sort of the ability to push back on suppliers?

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yes, John. So the incentive load that we've assumed is consistent with the 8% that we realized in Q1. So that's embedded in the margin guide, and that's throughout all four quarters of this year. Relating to the tariff question, I mentioned it's 1% of average sales price. So we're

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

in

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

the range of $5,000 on average. And it'll impact every single price point and consumer group that we serve. There might be a few minor nuances, but it's pretty broad across the spectrum. Look, our procurement teams are cycle tested. They're the best in the business.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

They do a really nice job. Jim highlighted that we've kept our build costs flat on a year over year basis. And so I think that's a tremendous accomplishment. You know, we've got good relationships with our suppliers. We want it to be a win win, but, you know, we think we offer value in the volume and predictability.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

And so we do look for, you know, better pricing than I think what you'd find in kind of the broader homebuilding universe. Every I think every business is dealing with added costs, and we're going to work to minimize it. I think keeping it to the 1% that we've talked about is significantly less than what you're hearing from the broader home building universe. So, you know, I think you're seeing pretty good execution from us in the guide that we've given about 1% of ASP.

[John Lovallo, Analyst at UBS Group]

Yes. We would agree 100% with that. And then maybe the second question, just on the share repurchases, 300,000,000 in the quarter, which is a really good level. Just I guess the question would be that that's consistent with what you guys have done over the past couple of quarters. Why not lean in a little bit more as the stock pulled back?

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yes, John. Look, it's a great question. Dollars 300,000,000 is significantly more than pocket change. So we feel pretty good about what we did. Our Board authorized an incremental $1,500,000,000 in share authorization in January.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

So our remaining authorization is $1,900,000,000 We've had a practice of reporting the news as opposed to giving the guidance. We do think that the equity is of value today. And so we'll check back in with you at the end of the second quarter and let you know where we land on Q2 repurchases.

[John Lovallo, Analyst at UBS Group]

All right. Thanks, Ryan.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Kim of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

[Stephen Kim, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Yes. Thanks very much, guys. Appreciate it. Strong results. Wanted to sort of follow-up on a couple of John's questions there.

[Stephen Kim, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

So one, with respect to your cash flow guide, think you said $1,400,000,000 Does this still assume no reduction in homes under construction or homes in progress? Because it looks like that actually would be an additional contributor to cash flow. And then you indicated the tariff increase amount actually been recognized or realized in negotiations thus far versus simply being proactively cautious?

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

Well, I'll take the first question. So on the cash flow guide, the $1,400,000,000 assumes kind of the homes that we need to put into production over the balance of the year to hit our 29,000 to 30,000 guide that we've given. We certainly have the capability to do more than that if the opportunity was there, but that's really what's been factored in. One of the things that I highlighted in my section, Stephen, was that we've adjusted our land spend as we've looked at development opportunities over the balance of the year in acquisition. We factor that into the operating cash flow guide.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Stephen, your second question, you broke up just a little bit. Would you mind repeating that about tariffs?

[Stephen Kim, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Yes, apologies. It was really that you had guided that to the one percentage point higher cost. And my question was how much of this has actually been recognized or realized in your negotiations with your vendors and providers versus simply you being cautious in your outlook? So I'm wondering how much of this has actually been seen thus far in terms of your negotiations.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yes, Steven, the latter. So, know, things that are already in production, there's no tariff impact on that. And, things that were already on the water, largely there's no tariff impact there either. So it's more about looking at our supply chain, where things come from and anticipating what the impact could look like as we hit the fourth quarter. So we're not expecting much of any impact until probably mid to late fourth quarter closings of this year.

[Stephen Kim, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Okay, great. That's helpful. Second question I had relates to the overall environment. I think that you did a good job of laying out like sort of what you've been seeing in terms of market conditions. But one of the things that seems to be manifesting here and what we've been hearing from during earnings season is that there is a certain level of demand that is fairly persistent and robust.

[Stephen Kim, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

But if you try to exceed the volume above that amount, if I try to entice additional buyers beyond that sort of strong core, you might say, you wind up having to give away significant price and margin in order to achieve that. So one, I wanted to know if you kind of think that that's a fair way of characterizing the market conditions today and if that is different in a meaningful way from what you have seen going back twenty, thirty years?

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yes, Steve. I think you're spot on. And it's part of the reason that we've highlighted the way our model has been built is really built for this exact environment. Always strive to strike the right balance between price and pace. But we've always had probably a slight bias toward gross margins, the reason we continue to deliver industry leading gross margins.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

In this environment, I think you're spot on. There is an underlying desire for homeownership, and there's a lot of buyers that still want to buy homes, and we're selling them those homes at very good profitability and good value to the consumer as well. The incentives that we're offering are mostly driven towards financing related incentives. And while all consumers and price points are getting incentives, there's certainly more or a higher percentage that are going into that first time buyer group or affordability is certainly more challenged. So look, in this environment, we're still really confident about the long term.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

We know that we're going to sell a lot of homes. And the operating platform that we have with over 60% of our consumer mix being an active adult and move up, we think we're really well positioned to continue to exceed despite the challenging macro.

[Stephen Kim, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Great. Thanks very much, guys.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Sam Reid of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

[Sam Reid, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Awesome. Thanks so much. Wanted to actually disaggregate the margin commentary a bit more here, especially on the tariff impact. It sounds like the impact from tariffs specifically will be more weighted to that fourth quarter period, if I'm hearing correctly. So maybe could you just talk to the change in guidance as it relates to the third quarter and just maybe bucket out incentives versus any other cost buckets we should be thinking of in the context of that fresh q three margin guide?

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

Great question, Sam. So, you know, as we look at q three and and q four, you know, as Ryan said, we are expecting our incentives to stay at that elevated level for the balance of the year. One of the things we have done very well in the first quarter we talked about is we've been selling some of our speculative inventory that's either in processed or finished. So we will start to see some of that come through in our Q3 and our Q4. And then as Ryan alluded to, really, we will see the tariff impact primarily in the fourth quarter.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

So we still feel really good about it. As we sit here at 26% to 26.5% for the back half of the year, we're really happy and pleased with what our operators are doing.

[Sam Reid, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

No, that helps. And then you already touched a little bit on this in the prepared remarks, but really wanted to get a better sense for how traffic trended in your Del Webb communities in early April, especially on the back of equity market volatility. I know this buyer tends to be more conservative, more likely to fund a purchase with investment savings than some of your other buyer cohorts. So just curious if you have any additional detail on, you know, what you might have seen in some of the Dell web traffic data and perhaps even some of the early, traffic to order conversion data. Thanks.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yes. Sam, it's Ryan. Thanks for the question.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

The the

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Delaware buyer continues to be a real shining star in our overall portfolio. We have mentioned in in prior periods that it's a buyer that is more sensitive to to macro and market volatility. But it doesn't mean that they go away. And in fact, you look at the sign ups that we had in the most recent quarter, it was one of our better performing consumer groups along with the move up. So we feel good about it.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

As it relates to April, April always takes a little bit of a seasonal shift down in sign ups, and we certainly saw that this year. The one thing that we would note about April is the day to day volatility was somewhat unusual, and I think that's totally understandable given what the consumer is dealing with. There's a lot of noise in the macro, concerns about recession, stock market volatility, interest rates up and you know, the the fears about tariff induced inflation, etcetera. So, you know, I think, you know, not specific just to the Del Webb, but really all consumers, there's a lot to deal with there. We we continue to be really confident about the long term.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

We know that we're gonna sell a lot of homes. We've got an unbelievable operating platform. We're short millions and millions of homes in this country. And given the way that we're balancing, you know, more of the focus on price versus pace, going back to Stephen's comment, you know, I think we're as well positioned as anybody in the space to continue to have success in this environment.

[Sam Reid, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

No. That helps a lot. Thanks so much, guys. I'll pass it on.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

Thanks, Sam.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Rehaut of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

[Michael Rehaut, Executive Director at JP Morgan]

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions and nice quarter in a tough environment. First question, I wanted to push a little bit and kind of get a little bit better or more granularity on the changes in guidance. In terms of the change also in the closings and obviously it kind of speaks to the price over pace preference.

[Michael Rehaut, Executive Director at JP Morgan]

At the same time, Ryan, you've also said in the past, you're not going to be margin proud. And so appreciating kind of both of those comments with maybe the tilt towards price more often than not. I'm curious if the reduction in closing guidance for the year is also in some ways reflective of some of the volatility in April as much as maybe orders coming in a little less than at least we were expecting for the March. And if that volatility in April kind of continues, maybe it doesn't rebound to something a little more stable, could there be further adjustments down the road in incentives or price? Or is the current guidance kind of reflecting the April's volatility, which I'm sure has impacted perhaps volumes to a decent extent?

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Good morning, Mike. Thanks for the question. It's Ryan. Let me maybe first start with the guide. And in terms of the full unit guide, it, you know, as we move through Q1, Q1 results were largely in line with our planning expectations.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

You know, it wasn't the most robust spring selling season, but it wasn't the worst that we've ever seen either. So, largely what we expected. April definitely had more volatility. The tricky part is we're twenty two some odd days into April. So I don't think you want to overreact to twenty two, days of data, but we did use that, to come up with a modified guide, for the balance of the year.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

We think we've incorporated everything that we know. There's a lot that we don't know out there, But what we're trying to convey is confidence to the investment community that we've got an unbelievable platform. Our balance sheet is world class and rock solid. We got a lot of cash. We've got low debt.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

We've got the ability to do a lot of things in this environment and, you know, and to really put some distance between us and the rest of the competitive set. We still have the capacity, Mike, to build 31,000 homes. Our, you know, our our procurement teams, our construction teams, the land is there. So, you know, if we took the the other side of the coin and say, hey. What if confidence in the consumer were to improve, then what?

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Well, we're still really well positioned to take advantage of that as well. So I think, you know, we want you to to hear we're being very balanced, very pragmatic, and, you know, we're we're on this. We're not we're not in panic mode. There's no reason to be in panic mode because we we know that we've just got an unbelievable operating platform. In terms of being margin proud, we're also not gonna be margin stupid.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

And and we're we're we've said that we're gonna we're gonna find the right balance between price and pace. And and, you know, to Steven's question in this environment, we know there's this embedded level of underlying demand that's there. We're working to drive high returns. If we saw the ability to drive a little more volume without giving excessive discounts, I think you'd see us do that. But that's not the environment that we're in now.

[Michael Rehaut, Executive Director at JP Morgan]

Okay. No. I appreciate the the detailed answer there, Ryan. I mean, and and it kinda sounds like in effect you are taking in, you know, again, the change in in guidance being, you know, the April volatility and and you remain relatively confident on price. If I have to kind of boil that down, if that's fair.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Think that's fair, Mike.

[Michael Rehaut, Executive Director at JP Morgan]

Okay. So secondly, again, just maybe a little bit more clarity on the tariff. Does appear that 1% of ASP is sort of an estimate, if I'm hearing that right. Really, maybe you're saying back half or half of the fourth quarter impact. So number one, I would just love to get a sense where are the buckets that, that 1% comes from?

[Michael Rehaut, Executive Director at JP Morgan]

Is it kind of just kind of spread all across the board? Or is there a couple of leading categories that you're focusing on in terms of the input mix? And secondly, it sounds therefore then that the change in back half gross margin guide is more driven by the spec reduction more than anything else. And just wondering if there's any other main drivers there as well. Thanks.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yes. So Mike, there's a lot there. I'll try and pick through it. In terms of tariffs, it is back half of fourth quarter. We've estimated it to be 1%.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

In terms of big categories, plumbing, specifically tank water heaters, porcelain, HVAC parts, especially things that HVAC parts that come out of China, tile flooring, the global 10% tariff, that affects every country, and most of the flooring comes from somewhere else. And then the other category would be electrical components and the related, so circuit breakers, load centers, etcetera. That's all wrapped up in 1% estimate. In terms of the margin guide in the back half, it's partly because of the incentive load. It's also partly because of higher land costs, but that was embedded in our guide to begin with.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

And if you compare our current guide Q4 to the prior guide, we're down 50 basis points, and that's really reflective of the updated tariff information and the incentive load that we've talked about.

[Michael Rehaut, Executive Director at JP Morgan]

Perfect. Thanks so much.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Bouley of Barclays. Please go ahead.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions and welcome, Jim, to the call. I wanted to ask on that land spend guide bringing that to $5,000,000,000 from $5,500,000,000 I guess I don't know if that also includes higher development costs following the tariffs on a dollar basis. So just curious on that. But then more broadly, I guess what does that signal around your growth intentions perhaps into 2026?

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Would a portion of that land spend be impacting community growth as soon as next year? Or just any other color on how that would flow into your growth expectations? Thank you.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yes. Matt, thanks for the question. And to your point, it's a hell of a quarter for Jim to have his first call, but I'm thrilled to have him here with us. And he's been an integral part of our team for a long time. In terms of the land spend guide, I think one of the most important decisions that we make as a management team is capital allocation and specifically how much money we're going to spend on land.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

We do have ambitious growth plans. We've talked about our long term growth guide of being 5% to 10%. And we're confident in that based on the land pipeline that we've been investing in for the last several years. We've got 244,000 lots under control. And so being a little more prudent in this environment and trimming the land spend, and it's really about delaying things a little bit as opposed to canceling.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

There's a if it were a market where we were really, really concerned, you might see canceling of land contracts. That's just not where we're at. So in terms of our ability to deliver 'twenty six and 'twenty seven, a little bit of a delay or a pause in land spend this year is not going to have an impact on that. We'll also see if there's an opportunity to make the land spend go a little further, meaning $5,000,000,000 may buy almost as much as what $5,500,000,000 did. We haven't seen that emerge yet, but that's certainly something that we're looking for.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Okay. Got it. Thanks for that, Ryan. And then secondly, drilling into the back into the gross margin side, the assumption around assuming current incentives of 8% hold, obviously, the March incentives came up 80 basis points sequentially during generally a seasonally stronger time for housing demand. So I just wanted to double click on kind of why that's the right assumption, kind of what you think kind of typically happens to incentives as you would move into the summer months and all of that?

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Or is the assumption just, you know, you're going to be able to reduce spec enough that you just wouldn't need to tweak incentives any further? So any more color on that? Thank you.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

Matthew, that's a great question. And and you hit on it right at the very end there. As we look at it, as we started to trim our speculative inventory, we've been doing a really nice job chewing through that in the first quarter. As we start to see that get down into our target range of 45%, we see the opportunity to ease off that a little bit. Now the environment may require us to do other things in order to keep moving homes, but as we get our spec inventory in balance, we think we have the opportunity to lower our incentives.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

All right. Thank you, Jim. Good luck, guys.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Dahl of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Yes, Jim, congrats on the new role. I wanted to drill into the order cadence a little bit more. So your sales per community were down 10% in the quarter.

[Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

You talked about April volatility. Can you put a finer point on your year on year comparison in April sales pace right now? And then maybe to take it a step further, you know, I understand the seasonal progression of increases through the quarter, but maybe you could give us some help on how the year on year comparisons looked in in Jan, Feb, and March.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yeah. Mike, you know, I I I don't know that we're gonna slice it quite that thin. You know, I think we've tried to be really responsive to give kind of detail around spring selling and how things progressed. January started, I think, the way a lot of Januaries do. You know, I mentioned in our last call that we were seeing some green shoots, and February is a good month, and March got even better.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

So spring selling season, I think, played out the way that we would have expected it. In total, and Jim had it in some of his prepared remarks, the seasonal increase from Q4 to Q1 was less than what we would normally expect. You know, you could argue based on that, spring selling season was was maybe a little below average. As we moved into April, you know, I I think I've said it, but I'll reiterate it. We've had more volatility from the consumer than we normally expect, and, you know, I think the reasons why are are very well understood.

[Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Yeah. I mean, I I certainly appreciate that. I just think given the uncertainty out there, you're you're clearly providing us a lot of helpful detail. If if there was any quantification for April in light of a less than normal seasonal increase in one q, I would think it would be helpful. But, Ryan, I guess

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yeah. Maybe maybe I'll just jump I'll jump on that real quick. You know, what we've tried to do is to articulate and quantify that into our full year volume guide. So you'll have to take our word for it that based on April sales combined with what we did in Q1. But I think the bigger driver is what's happened in April.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

We've modified the full year volume guide.

[Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Right. Hey, The second question I had, you mentioned in your opening remarks a potential for exciting opportunities. You mentioned just in response to Matt's question, hey. Maybe 5,000,000,000 goes further than you would have thought three or six months ago. I I think that's kind of alluding to some reset in the land market, but maybe you can give a little more detail.

[Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

I don't know if anyone's really thinking that this cycle is gonna produce the type of distress that we saw out of the GFC. So are are you kinda referencing things that you're currently seeing in the land market? Are you thinking about bigger M and A opportunities? You know, maybe just talk a little bit more about what those comments were geared to.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yeah. Not really trying to telegraph any kinda hidden messages there, Matt. Know, probably the and we've not seen and probably wouldn't expect to have a major reset in the land market. You know, other than the, you know, the great financial crisis, land just doesn't seem to go through a reset. It's in short supply.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

It's part of the reason that we're so short. Housing is because land is so hard to come by. So I think land values are going to be pretty durable. We're we think that there could be some exciting opportunities. There are builders that are not as well capitalized or as balance sheet strong as what we are.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

And for a number of reasons, they may elect to walk away from something. And, you know, that may create some opportunities where, you know, we can step in and grab something at a at a good value, you know, maybe something that was tied up at a prior value, you know, that we're able to inherit, etcetera. So time will tell, whether or not that plays out. We haven't seen a ton of it yet, but, you know, we're, you know, they say hope's not a strategy, but, should, some of those opportunities emerge, we're really well positioned and in a great financial position to take advantage.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Karl Reichardt with BTIG. Please go ahead.

[Carl Reichardt, Managing Director - Equity Research at BTIG]

Thanks. Good morning, guys. So, Ryan, just to drill down on April 1 more time. When we're talking about volatility, are you referring to foot traffic, conversion rates, or cancellations in terms of the most significant impact on the order volatility?

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yeah. You know, Carl, when when we're talking about volatility, we're talking about rate of daily sales. That's the volatility. The other things have been largely stable, including can rate. We have not seen a run for the doors from consumers that previously made a decision to buy and are in our backlog.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

That's been really stable. And as Jim highlighted, we saw a modest a very small tick up in can rate in the first quarter to 1%, we haven't seen a change in behavior in April either.

[Carl Reichardt, Managing Director - Equity Research at BTIG]

Great. Thank you, Ryan. And then talking about a couple of the bigger picture stuff for you as you look at your your current environment. You talked last call about getting cycle times down to, I think, one hundred days in the back half of the year. And I'm also interested in the bigger picture of going to 70% option lots, you're at 59% now.

[Carl Reichardt, Managing Director - Equity Research at BTIG]

So is the current environment impacting either one of those sort of bigger picture goals for you either on cycle times or on your move to option lots do you think? Thanks.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

So cycle time, Karl, we talked about it last quarter. We're basically at one hundred days on our single family, which is so mission accomplished there. We don't really expect any more kind of changes. We're at where we want to be. Jim quoted we're at one hundred and ten days overall.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

And what that includes is a lot of our multifamily condo buildings that have much longer cycle time than a single family. So we're where we want to be on cycle time. In terms of land optionality, we've made tremendous progress toward that kind of target of 70%. What Jim talked about in his prepared remarks is that we're going be really prudent in evaluating when and where and how we drive for optionality. When we think about optionality, we're looking to be capital efficient.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

We're also looking to mitigate risk associated with owning land. And so our that will be our driving force North Star is mitigating risk associated with owning land. A secondary benefit will be the improved efficiency that we get on return. But we're not going to let the tail wag the dog on this one, Karl.

[Carl Reichardt, Managing Director - Equity Research at BTIG]

I appreciate it, Ryan. Thanks a lot, guys.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Alan Ratner of Zelman and Associates. Please go ahead.

[Alan Ratner, Managing Director at Zelman Partners LLC]

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for all the great detail. I know this is not an easy environment to give guidance and give commentary, so we appreciate it. First, Ryan, we've talked about this in the past.

[Alan Ratner, Managing Director at Zelman Partners LLC]

I'm surprised it hasn't come up yet on this call. But curious just to get an update on what you're seeing in Florida. I think given your exposure there, given how strong your margins have been in the state, That's usually one of the main concerns I hear from investors related to Pulte, and Florida certainly seems to be getting a fair amount of negative headlines in terms of the conditions across the state. So I was hoping you could give just kind of more granular commentary on what you saw through the quarter and into April in Florida across your markets and price points.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yes. Alan, Florida is a really important market for us. The thing that I would highlight about our Florida market is the majority of our business there is in the move up in the active build space. And we've talked about that being one of stronger segments. So I feel from a strategic standpoint, I feel really good about how we're positioned in Florida.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

In the near term, resale inventory in Florida across the state is probably higher than what anybody would like it to be. You know, the last number that I saw is I think it's around seven months of total inventory, which is, you know, slightly over the ideal of six or lower. So, you know, maybe not perfect, but also not in full blown panic mode either. Our Florida business is only down 5% on a year over year basis. So, you know, down a little bit, but certainly not catastrophic.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

You know, the so I'd leave it there as it relates to Florida, Alan.

[Alan Ratner, Managing Director at Zelman Partners LLC]

Okay. I appreciate that. Second, in terms of the cycle time improvements that you've seen and everybody else has seen, I'm hearing a lot of quantification on tariffs in terms of the cost impact, but I haven't really heard many builders talk about, and maybe they don't expect it, any potential disruptions to the supply chain, to cycle times that might come about from all this tariff noise? Is it possible suppliers as they're trying to shift production domestically, did that create some pressure here on some U. S.

[Alan Ratner, Managing Director at Zelman Partners LLC]

Suppliers? I'm just trying

[Alan Ratner, Managing Director at Zelman Partners LLC]

to figure out what are

[Alan Ratner, Managing Director at Zelman Partners LLC]

the potential landmines that maybe we're not talking about in the supply chain that might come about from tariffs? And maybe your answer is there are none because you've done the work, but curious your thoughts there.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yes, Alan. I, there are some. And exactly where they're going to be, I I can't predict that. I'm not anticipating COVID level, disruption in the supply chain, but to just assume there's gonna be none, I think, would be burying your head in the sand. There are things going on in the in the global supply chain that will inevitably create hot spots and issues.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

We'll be really transparent with you when we see those and how what we're doing to mitigate it. The confidence that I'd give you is I'd go back to our world class procurement team. They know how to deal with this. They know how to be agile. We're fresh off of, you know, three years of dealing with COVID related supply chain.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

I'm not suggesting this is going to be a lay down, but I think it'll be potentially an easier obstacle course to navigate than the COVID supply chain disruptions. But, you know, I do think the industry needs to be prepared, and not just the industry. The world needs to be prepared for some disruptions, as a result of things that are going on, tariff induced.

[Alan Ratner, Managing Director at Zelman Partners LLC]

Appreciate the thoughts. Thanks, guys.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Kenneth Zener of Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead.

[Kenneth Zener, Senior Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Good morning, Welcome, Jim. Two quick questions here. What do you think your 4Q year end inventory units are going to be relative to last year's 4Q? And how are your incentives different by segment? You know?

[Kenneth Zener, Senior Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

So, like, Subtax Florida versus excuse me. Subtax Texas versus your Florida Del Webb.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

Yeah. Ken, So I'll take the first part, and I'll let Jim take the the part on on margins and incentives. As as it relates to inventory, our target range is 40 to 45%. And I think what you've seen from us is we've adjusted our inventory levels in reaction to things that have been going on in the broader market. Right now, you know, we're probably in a little bit of a risk off mode of inventory, and so you've seen us trimming from where we were to getting back inside of our range.

[Ryan Marshall, President and CEO at PulteGroup]

In terms of the year over year comparison, I think it'll depend, but I'd expect us to be within, you know, our stated range, which I believe would be lower that would end up being lower than where we were at the end of of Q4 twenty four. Jim, you wanna take the the other piece?

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

On the incentives, you know, we don't really slice them back then. What I would tell you is, you know, incentives can come in different shapes and forms. If it's a speculative inventory unit, maybe there's a discount associated with that. You touched on our active adult buyers. Many of those are cash buyers, but maybe the incentive they get is a discount on options at our design centers.

[James Ossowski, EVP & CFO at PulteGroup]

It varies across all of them. Particularly on the first time buyer, they probably need a little bit more help on the financing side. So again, incentives come in different shapes and forms, and we think we just find the right balance for each individual consumer.

[Kenneth Zener, Senior Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Thank you.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time. With that, I will now turn the call back over to Jim Zimmer for final closing remarks. Please go ahead.

[James Zeumer, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at PulteGroup]

Appreciate everybody's time on the call this morning. Actually, there were a few people left in the queue, we've simply run out of time on this call. We're available over the remainder of

[James Zeumer, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at PulteGroup]

the day if you've any questions. Otherwise, we will look forward to speaking with you on the second quarter call.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.

Participants

Executives

• James Zeumer, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications
• Ryan Marshall, President and CEO
• James Ossowski, EVP & CFO

Analysts

• John Lovallo, Analyst at UBS Group
• Stephen Kim, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI
• Sam Reid, Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Michael Rehaut, Executive Director at JP Morgan
• Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays
• Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets
• Carl Reichardt, Managing Director - Equity Research at BTIG
• Alan Ratner, Managing Director at Zelman Partners LLC
• Kenneth Zener, Senior Analyst at Seaport Research Partners