Earnings call transcript: Green Brick Partners Q2 2025 sees net income drop

Green Brick Partners Inc. (GRBK) reported its second-quarter 2025 earnings, revealing a decline in net income and diluted earnings per share (EPS) compared to the same period last year. Despite the challenges, the company maintained steady revenue from home closings and continued its strategic expansion efforts. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company maintains a "GREAT" financial health score of 3.2, with particularly strong profitability metrics. Following the earnings release, the company’s stock price increased by 5.97% during regular trading hours but saw a slight dip of 1.19% in the aftermarket. InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis suggests the stock is currently undervalued.

Key Takeaways

• Net income decreased by 22% year-over-year.
• Diluted EPS fell by 20% from Q2 2024.
• Home closings revenue remained stable.
• Stock price rose by 5.97% during regular trading.
• Expanded into new markets with Trophy Signature Homes.

Company Performance

Green Brick Partners faced a challenging quarter with a notable decline in net income and EPS. The company reported a net income of $82 million, down from the previous year, and diluted EPS of $1.85, representing a 20% decrease. Despite these setbacks, the company managed to keep its home closings revenue virtually flat at $547 million, showcasing resilience in a tough market environment. InvestingPro data reveals impressive fundamentals, including a healthy P/E ratio of 8.46 and strong revenue growth of 13.87% over the last twelve months. For deeper insights into GRBK’s valuation and growth prospects, investors can access the comprehensive Pro Research Report, available exclusively on InvestingPro.

Financial Highlights

• Net income: $82 million, down 22% year-over-year
• Diluted EPS: $1.85, down 20% from Q2 2024
• Home closings revenue: $547 million, flat year-over-year
• Home building gross margins: 30.4%, down 410 basis points
• Share repurchases: $60 million returned to shareholders

Market Reaction

Green Brick Partners’ stock experienced a 5.97% increase in value during regular trading hours, closing at $62.84. However, in the aftermarket, the stock saw a minor decline of 1.19%, bringing the price to $62.09. This movement reflects a mixed investor sentiment, balancing the company’s strategic expansions against its financial performance challenges.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Green Brick Partners is focused on operational excellence and maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet. The company plans to continue its selective land acquisition strategy and expand its Trophy Signature Homes brand into new markets. InvestingPro analysis highlights the company’s exceptional liquidity position with a current ratio of 9.82 and moderate debt levels, supporting its expansion plans. The company’s guidance for future quarters includes EPS forecasts of $1.51 for Q4 2025 and $1.46 for Q1 2026, with projected revenues of $477.75 million and $441.82 million, respectively. InvestingPro subscribers have access to 8 additional key insights about GRBK’s financial health and growth prospects.

Executive Commentary

CEO Jim Brickman expressed confidence in the company’s ability to navigate market dynamics, stating, "We believe we are well positioned to navigate these market dynamics more effectively than our peers." President Jed Dolson emphasized the company’s pricing flexibility, noting, "Our industry-leading margins provide us with significant additional pricing flexibility."

Risks and Challenges

• High interest rates impacting consumer confidence.
• Decreased average sales price by 5.3% to $525,000.
• Increased incentives to drive sales, up to 7.7%.
• Potential tariffs and market volatility.
• Macroeconomic pressures affecting the housing market.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the company’s response to ongoing market volatility and its use of mortgage rate buy-downs as a primary incentive. Executives confirmed the strong credit quality of buyers and downplayed the expected impact of potential tariffs on operations.

Full transcript - Green Brick Partners Inc (GRBK) Q2 2025:

Conference Call Operator: Good afternoon and welcome to the Green Brick Partners second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. I would now like to turn the call over to Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: Please go ahead.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: Good afternoon and welcome to Green Brick Partners earnings call for the second quarter ended June 30, 2025. Following today’s remarks, we will hold a question and answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and will be available for playback. In addition, a presentation will accompany today’s webcast and is also available on the company’s website at investors.greenbrickpartners.com. On the call today is Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer, and myself, Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer. Some of the information discussed on this call is forward looking, including a discussion of the Company’s financial and operational expectations for 2025 and beyond. In yesterday’s press release and SEC filings, the Company detailed material risks that may cause its future results to differ from its expectations.

The Company’s statements are as of today, July 31, 2025, and the Company has no obligation to update any forward looking statement it may make. The comments also include non-GAAP financial metrics. Reconciliation of these metrics and the other information required by Regulation G can be found in the earnings release that the Company issued yesterday and in the presentation available on the Company’s website. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Jim.

Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Green Brick Partners: Thank you, Jeff. I’m pleased to announce our second quarter results, particularly given the ongoing and persistent affordability challenges faced by many consumers in this housing market. Net income attributable to Green Brick Partners for the second quarter was $82 million, or $1.85 per diluted share. As we exited this spring selling season, our performance remained strong despite high interest rates and decreasing consumer confidence. We were focused on balancing price and pace to maximize returns in each of our communities. Our builders and their sales teams were able to adapt quickly to changing market conditions to drive traffic and sales. As a result, we set several company records during the quarter. For one, we achieved a record for closings by delivering 1,042 homes, and two, we achieved a record for net new orders of 908, which was the highest for any second quarter in company history.

Year over year, both home closings and net new orders increased approximately 6%, though revenue for the quarter was virtually flat year over year at $547 million. As Jed will discuss in more detail, maintaining that sales volume required price concessions and other incentives as we address the affordability challenges raised in this high interest rate environment. As expected, these dynamics put downward pressure on our home building gross margins, which declined 410 basis points year over year and 80 basis points sequentially to 30.4%. Nonetheless, our gross margins remain the highest in the public home building industry and mark the ninth consecutive quarter in which our gross margins exceeded 30%. Additionally, we returned $60 million of capital to our shareholders in the first half of 2025 through share repurchases, and we still have another $40 million of authorization remaining under our buyback program.

Since 2022, we have repurchased approximately 7.9 million shares, reducing our outstanding share count by approximately 16%. Looking ahead, our strategic focus remains on maintaining operational excellence while navigating ongoing market volatility. We are laser focused on maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet with our disciplined approach in land acquisition while at the same time ensuring that we are well positioned for future growth. Our continued emphasis on efficient cost controls, innovative home offerings, and targeted expansion in high volume markets supports our goal of sustaining industry leading profitability metrics and creating long term shareholder value. We are particularly encouraged by the positive reception of our Trophy Signature Homes brand, which continues to outperform expectations and resonates strongly with both first time and move up buyers.

The continued expansion of Trophy and DFW in Austin, along with the upcoming entry into the Houston market later this year, presents significant opportunities as we believe it will allow us to further diversify our revenue base, strengthen our presence in key Texas markets, and provide a runway for sustained growth over the next few years as we remain vigilant in monitoring macroeconomic trends and adapting to shifts in buyer preferences. We believe that our experienced team and robust land pipeline in desirable infill and infill adjacent locations will drive continued success in the quarters to come. With that, I’ll now turn it over to Jeff to provide more detail regarding our financial results. Thank you, Jim.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: As Jim Brickman mentioned earlier, we achieved a couple of new records this quarter for home closings and net new orders. Given the challenging economic conditions and increased supply of housing inventory in our markets, discounts and incentives increased year over year as a percentage of residential unit revenue to 7.7% from 4.5%. Our average sales price also declined by 5.3% year over year to $525,000 as our affiliated builders adjusted quickly to meet market demand. Home closings revenue was virtually unchanged compared to the same period last year at $547 million, and home building gross margins decreased 410 basis points year over year and 80 basis points sequentially to 30.4% due to higher discounts and incentives, primarily for mortgage buy downs.

SG&A as a percentage of residential unit revenue for the second quarter increased by 40 basis points year over year to 10.9% as we continue to invest in our future growth as a result of lower average sales prices and gross margins. Net income attributable to Green Brick Partners for the second quarter decreased 22% year over year to $82 million, and diluted earnings per share decreased 20% from our record quarterly earnings in the second quarter 2024 to $1.85 per share. Our effective tax rate also increased to 21.9% from 18.5% due in part to a one-time benefit last year associated with stock options exercised in the second quarter of 2024. Year to date deliveries increased 8% year over year to 1,952 homes, and our average sales price declined 2.5% to $534,000.

As a result, we generated home closings revenue of just over $1 billion, which increased 5.3% year to date from the same period in 2024. Home building gross margin decreased 320 basis points to 30.8% year to date. Net income attributable to Green Brick Partners decreased 16.8% to $157 million, and diluted earnings per share declined 15% to $3.52. As a reminder, we sold our 49.9% interest in Challenger Homes in the first quarter last year, which had the impact of adding $0.21 to 2024 diluted earnings per share. Net new home orders during the second quarter moderated from our record level of 1,106 in the first quarter of 2025, but were up 6.2% year over year to 908. Year to date, net new home orders increased 4.6% year over year to 2,014.

Our average active selling communities remained relatively unchanged year over year at approximately 102, a third of which were Trophy communities, and our sales pace for the second quarter increased 4.7% to approximately 3 homes per month compared to 2.8 homes per month in the previous year. With our continued investment in land and in particular larger master plan communities, our average lot count per owned and controlled community increased 26.3% from the same period last year. We increased our starts by 10% from the previous quarter to 950 to better match our sales pace, but year over year starts still declined by 3.4%. Units under construction at the end of the quarter were down marginally by 1.1% to approximately 2,200 units. We will continue to monitor market conditions and adjust our starts pace to manage our inventory levels accordingly.

Due to a higher proportion of quick move-in sales coupled with a 13 day improvement in our average construction cycle time, our backlog value at the end of the second quarter decreased 21% year over year to $516 million. Backlog average sales price decreased 3.3% to $707,000 due primarily to higher discounts and incentives. Trophy, our spec home builder, represented only 15% of our overall backlog value consistent with previous quarters, but they accounted for nearly half of our closing volume. Lastly, we believe our investment-grade balance sheet continues to serve as a solid foundation for future growth, providing us with exceptional financial strength to navigate market headwinds and deploy capital opportunistically.

At the end of the second quarter, our net debt to total capital ratio declined to 9.4% and our debt to total capital ratio was only 14.4%, the lowest level since 2015 and among the best of our small and mid cap public home building peers. Our long-term notes bear interest at a low average fixed rate of 3.4%. At the end of the quarter, we maintained a robust cash position of $112 million with no outstanding borrowings on our syndicated line of credit. With total liquidity of $477 million, we believe we are well positioned to weather more challenging market conditions, to opportunistically deploy capital to maximize shareholder returns and to accelerate growth as the housing market improves. With that, I’ll now turn it over to Jed.

Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Green Brick Partners: Thank you, Jeff. We believe a combination of high interest rates, seasonality, and weakened consumer confidence contributed to a more challenging quarter compared to the prior year. Demand was impacted across all of our markets, especially within our Trophy brand, as interest rates ticked up over 7% for portions of April and May. However, our builders were quick to adapt to the evolving market conditions and regain traction in sales volumes in the latter part of the quarter. Trophy, in particular, which represented 52% of net new orders by volume, saw its orders grow by 9.3% year over year, while our cancellation rate for the second quarter increased sequentially to 9.9% from 9.2% in the previous year.

It continued to remain among the lowest in the public homebuilding industry, and we believe demonstrates the credit worthiness of our buyers, quality of our product, and desirability of the land and lot positions where we build. We continue to address the affordability challenges faced by consumers by providing our home buyers with price concessions and allowances towards interest rate buy downs and closing costs. Incentives for net new orders during the second quarter were higher by 320 basis points year over year and 100 basis points sequentially, increasing to 7.7%. These tools proved effective in driving traffic and sales velocity, especially with our quick move-in homes. With our superior infill and infill-adjacent communities and industry-leading gross margins, we believe we are well positioned to adjust pricing as needed to meet market demand and maintain our sales pace.

While we recognize the importance of preserving our margins, we also recognize that our industry-leading margins provide us with significant additional pricing flexibility to compete effectively in a volatile market. Green Brick Mortgage, which launched in the latter half of 2024, continued to roll out its operation within our DFW communities and planned expansion into Austin, Atlanta, and Houston later this year and early next year. Green Brick Mortgage closed and funded over 140 loans during the second quarter with an average FICO score of 745 and an average debt to income ratio of 38%, consistent with the previous quarter. We are excited about the future prospects of our wholly owned mortgage company as it continues to increase its capture rate, provide top-tier service to our home buyers, and gives us increased visibility into our backlog.

Operationally, we continue to make meaningful strides in reducing costs and enhancing our operational efficiency. The cost for labor and materials for homes closed this quarter was down approximately 4,000 homes compared to the same period last year. Furthermore, we achieved a major milestone by reducing our average construction cycle time to just under 5 months. This is an improvement of 13 days from a year ago. In particular, Trophy’s average cycle time in DFW was only 3.5 months. Labor availability remains relatively stable across all of our markets. We recognize the concerns surrounding tariffs and continue to work closely with our vendors and suppliers to mitigate any potential impact.

We believe tariffs will have a minimal impact on our closings and earnings this year, although we acknowledge that the lack of certainty with respect to final tariff timing, scope, or percentages makes it impossible to analyze potential tariff impact with precision. As we navigate through various macro challenges, we’re carefully recalibrating our capital allocation plan to align both our long-term growth objectives and respond to challenging market conditions. During the quarter, we spent $49 million on land and lot acquisition and another $85 million on land development, bringing our year-to-date spend to $109 million and $139 million respectively. We continue to project approximately $300 million in land development spending for the full year of 2025, which we believe is laying the foundation for strong growth in subsequent years.

Given the strength of our existing land pipeline, we remain patient and selective with future land opportunities without compromising the ability to grow our business in the near and intermediate term. At the end of the second quarter, we grew our total lots owned and controlled by 21% year over year to 40,200, of which over 35,000 were owned on our balance sheet and approximately 5,000 were controlled. Trophy comprises approximately 70% of our total lots. Our uncontrolled, excluding approximately 25,000 lots in long-term master plan communities, or lot supply is approximately five years. Lastly, we are on schedule to open our first community in Houston. The construction of our first model home will begin in August. With our grand opening planned this fall, we are excited about expanding Trophy’s footprint into one of the largest home building markets in the U.S.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Jim for closing remarks.

Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Green Brick Partners: Thank you, Jed. As the housing market continues to evolve, we believe we are well positioned to navigate these market dynamics more effectively than our peers and strategically position ourselves for future growth. I also want to thank our dedicated employees for their hard work and contributions. Their tireless efforts, expertise, and dedication have been instrumental in driving our company’s success even in the face of challenging market conditions. This concludes our prepared remarks, and we will now open the line for questions.

Conference Call Operator: If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We’ll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Rohit Seth from B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks for taking my question.

Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Green Brick Partners: My question first was on the incentive trajectory.

Just Q.Q. incentives up to close to 8%. Curious to see, you know, what the incentive run rate is so far in.

Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Green Brick Partners: July, and we expect further increases as.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: We go through the year.

Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Green Brick Partners: Yeah, hi, this is Jim. We don’t forward look. July, we’re just trying to explain June right now. Generally, we’re seeing things level out, but things are still very spotty by neighborhood. We look at our sales report every morning and try. Jed’s more active in this than anyone else in our business.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: But.

Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Green Brick Partners: Talk to me one week. We’re really excited. We think things are picking up, incentives are going down, and the next week it’s a total change in a neighborhood. Understood.

All right, second question on gross margins.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: Can you give us a sense of?

How much the gross margin decline was just pure price incentives versus mix with more sales of Trophy Signature Homes?

Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Green Brick Partners: Sure.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: Yeah. This is Jeff, you know, most of it was just due to mortgage rate buy downs. That seems to be the most effective tool that we have right now. Of the overall roughly 5% decline in average sales price, I would say that a little under 2% was related to mix. Trophy Signature Homes’ closing volume did increase year over year by about 4%, so that is having a small impact there. Most of it, like I said, is towards the increased incentives for the mortgage rate buy downs.

Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Green Brick Partners: All right, thank you.

Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Alex Riegel from Texas Capital. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Green Brick Partners: Thanks.

Gentlemen, nice quarter. Your starts in the second quarter increased in the first quarter.

Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Green Brick Partners: How do you?

How do you think about your starts in the second half of the year? I know you don’t project things like that, but given last year’s kind of seasonality of pretty meaningful strength in the quantity of communities and whatnot that you’re opening, any direction there would be helpful.

Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Green Brick Partners: Yeah, this is Jed. Thanks, Alex. We are going to match starts to sales. Sales have been fairly consistent throughout the year, and we think our start cadence will mirror that.

That’s helpful. Another way to maybe ask the gross margin question: homebuilding gross margins were down 410 basis points year over year. Incentives obviously rose 320 basis points. That’s probably the majority of the gross margin weakness. What was the remaining sort of basis points of margin headwind? It sounds like building materials were lower. Was the remaining margin headwind due to a shift in mix of more product, more Trophy Signature Homes product, or something else?

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: Yeah, Alex, this is Jeff again. The balance is primarily due to mix. Trophy’s margins are still relatively in line with the rest of our brands in the company, but their mix did increase. As you know, Trophy targets primarily the first-time, first move-up buyer. When rates were over 7% last quarter, we really had to continue to incentivize our homes to get some traction and get those sold and closed. The great news is we were very effective in doing so. The number of quick move-in homes that we had this year that both sold and closed in the quarter was around 50% versus the prior year, it was around 40%. We’re seeing a lot of buyers taking advantage of the mortgage rate buy downs to close quickly.

How do you think about your inventory level today?

Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Green Brick Partners: Yeah, this is Jed. We are seeing the buyer, and this changes month to month. Currently, we’re seeing the buyer really focused on finished homes across all of our brands, with the exception of our Florida division. We want to have plenty of finished homes. The buyer’s wanting that to take out the uncertainty of the mortgage rates and, frankly, for reasons we don’t completely understand, not go through the build process. We are still selling some build jobs, especially at our upper end line. Entry level is predominantly all specs right now.

Thank you very much.

Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Green Brick Partners: Excuse me. I’d like to add one thing to that, Alex. You know, one of the things we are seeing and one of the advantages of having an investment-grade balance sheet and some of our public peers that are very strong financially is that we think that many of the more leveraged, extended private builders or even some of the weaker public builders are not going to be building as many specs going forward. We do see the lending environment really getting much more restrictive there.

Conference Call Operator: We have another question from Alex Riegel from Texas Capital.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: Please go ahead.

Conference Call Operator: Your line is open.

Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Green Brick Partners: Thanks, Jim.

Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Green Brick Partners: That was really helpful.

I have another question. I was on a pretty significant building materials distributor call earlier today, and there was sort of maybe a suggestion out there that inventory levels might be a little high across the industry itself. I was wondering if you could maybe comment on inventory levels amongst maybe some of your competitors or in your unique geographies that you happen to be in.

Hey, Alex, this is Jed.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: I’ll take that.

Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Green Brick Partners: At the entry level, I’d say a typical Trophy Signature Homes community, we have two lot sizes per community. We’re running, say, 14 to 15 finished specs at any one time in that community, which has two lot sizes. That’s averaging typically what our monthly sales are in that community. The way we’re looking at it is we want to have one to two months of finished inventory for the buyer to move in. Something that’s interesting that we’re seeing is we’re spending a lot of time out in the front field looking at our competitors and also our own neighborhoods. We’re seeing very little resale activity within the communities. I think people are, the existing residents are happy with their mortgage rates. We are really able to buy down the rates into the 4.99% range.

We continue to do that and we continue to have success doing that and finding very little retail activity.

Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Green Brick Partners: One of the other differentiators that we see is that when you go into neighborhoods, we’ve never really sold to investors and our cancellation rate is, you know, single digit. We think our backlog, even, you know, when we do sign up a buyer, we think it’s a higher quality. What was our cancellation rate, 9%, Jeff?

Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Green Brick Partners: Just under.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: Yeah, just under 10%.

Jim Brickman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Green Brick Partners: I think we can even be more aggressive in writing deals.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: Yeah.

Jed Dolson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Green Brick Partners: This is Jeff.

Jeff Cox, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Green Brick Partners: The credit quality, to Jim’s point, of our buyers has continued to be very strong. Average FICO scores on closings last quarter was 745, and the debt to income ratio was 38%. We haven’t seen a lot of movement there. Our mortgage company is doing a great job of pre-qualifying buyers so that we know that they can close quickly.

It’s very helpful. Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: We have no further questions in queue. This will conclude today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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