Century Communities, Inc. CCS reported mixed results in fourth-quarter 2024, wherein earnings topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate but revenues missed the same. Nonetheless, both metrics registered improvements on a year-over-year basis.
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The company's fourth-quarter performance marked a record in home deliveries. For the year, the company achieved a notable rise in home deliveries compared with the prior year. Additionally, net new home contracts saw substantial year-over-year growth. Owing to the growth in lot and community count in 2024, CCS remains optimistic about the 2025 outlook, wherein it expects the total home deliveries and home sales revenues to increase on a year-over-year basis.
Shares of this homebuilding company moved up 3% in yesterday’s after-market trading session.
Inside the Headlines of CCS
The company reported quarterly adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $3.49, which topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings of $3.21 by 8.7%. The metric grew 19.1% year over year from an EPS of $2.93.
Century Communities, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
Century Communities, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
Century Communities, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Century Communities, Inc. Quote
Total revenues of $1.27 billion missed the consensus mark of $1.30 billion by 1.7%, but increased 5.6% year over year from $1.21 billion.
The quarter’s adjusted EBITDA increased 17.3% to $172.6 million from the year-ago quarter.
CCS’ Segmental Details
Homebuilding: The segment's revenues of $1.25 billion increased 4.9% from the year-ago quarter’s level of $1.19 billion. The number of homes delivered was a quarterly record of 3,198 units, up 1.3% from the year-ago period’s levels. The average selling price (“ASP”) also increased 3.8% from a year ago to $389,800.
Net new home contracts grew 5.4% to 2,467 units from the prior year’s reported value of 2,340 units. Quarter-end backlog totaled 850 homes, down 20.6% from the year-ago figure. Further, potential housing revenues from backlog declined 12.4% from the prior-year period to $351.2 million. On the other hand, the backlog ASP inched up 10.3% year over year to $413,100.
As of Dec. 31, 2024, the selling community count was 322, up 28.3% from the year-ago period’s value of 251.
Within homebuilding, the adjusted homebuilding gross margin (excluding interest and inventory impairment) contracted 10 bps year over year to 22.9%. Selling, general and administrative expenses, as a percentage of housing revenues, increased 40 bps from the year-ago figure to 11.5%.
Total lot inventory as of Dec. 31, 2024, increased 9.4% to 80,632 of which 35,756 was owned and 44,876 was controlled.
Financial Services: The segment's revenues increased 59.3% year over year to $26.2 million. Pretax income was $7.9 million in the reported quarter.
2024 Highlights of CCS
Total revenues were $4.4 billion, up 19.1% from $3.69 billion reported in the prior year. Homebuilding revenues were $4.31 billion, up from $3.61 billion reported in 2023. Earnings were $11.06 per share, up from $8.09 reported in 2023.
Total homes delivered were 11,007 units in fiscal 2024, up 3.8% from 9,568 units in 2023. Adjusted homebuilding gross margin (excluding interest and inventory impairment) was 23.3%, up 80 bps from 22.5% reported in 2023.
CCS’ Financial Position
Century Communities had cash and cash equivalents of $150 million as of Dec. 31, 2024, down from $226.2 million in 2023 end. The company had a total liquidity of $917.5 million, including $153 million of cash.
As of the end of 2024, the net homebuilding debt-to-capital ratio was 30.3%, up from 22.4% in 2023 end.
CCS’ 2025 Outlook
For the year, CCS expects home deliveries to be between 11,700 homes and 12,400 homes. The home sales revenues are expected between $4.5 billion and $4.8 billion.
CCS’ Zacks Rank & Recent Peer Releases
Century Communities currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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