KB Home (KBH): A look at the homebuilder’s expectations for the year

Shares of KB Home (NYSE: KBH) have dropped 35% year-to-date and 28% over the past 12 months. Last week, the company reported second quarter 2022 earnings results that surpassed expectations thereby boosting optimism around its growth prospects.

Despite inflationary pressures impacting current demand, KBH anticipates demand over the long term to remain healthy based on work-from-home trends as well as an undersupply of new homes and low existing home inventory. Here’s a look at the company’s expectations for the year:

Housing revenue

KBH generated housing revenue of $1.71 billion in Q2 2022, which was up 18% from the prior-year period, reflecting a double-digit increase in average selling price and approx. the same number of homes delivered. The company has a backlog of over 12,300 homes with a value of over $6.1 billion.

Based on its current construction cycle times and backlog, KBH projects housing revenue for the third quarter of 2022 to range between $1.82-1.92 billion. For full-year 2022, housing revenues are expected to range between $7.3-7.5 billion.

Average selling price

In the second quarter, KBH’s overall average selling price of homes delivered increased 21% year-over-year to $494,000, reflecting the strong housing market conditions over the past year which supported the opening of new communities and allowed the company to raise its prices.

KBH saw higher average selling prices across each of its four regions during the quarter. The company is forecasting an average selling price of $495,000 for the third quarter and approx. $500,000 for the full year.

Community count

KBH ended the second quarter with 214 communities, up 7% YoY. During the period, the company had 35 community openings and 29 sell-outs. The second quarter average of 211 communities was up 3% YoY. New community openings tend to generate strong interest and demand from homebuyers driving their performance above company averages.

KBH expects its ending community count to reflect a slight sequential increase in Q3 followed by a more substantial one in Q4. The company expects to have approx. 250 open selling communities at year-end, which would reflect an increase of around 15% from last year.

Click here to read the full transcript of KB Home’s Q2 2022 earnings conference call