Meritage Homes Corporation (NYSE: MTH) reported Q3 EPS of $1.33, $0.03 worse than the analyst estimate of $1.36. Revenue for the quarter came in at $877.73 million versus the consensus estimate of $892.23 million.

“We delivered another quarter of strong earnings performance with a 13% increase in pre-tax earnings, largely due to the success of our shift into the entry-level market over the past couple of years,” said Steven J. Hilton, chairman and chief executive officer of Meritage Homes. “That performance resulted from a 10% increase in our third quarter home closings -- the second highest number of homes we’ve delivered in more than a decade -- and our ability to hold margins through increased efficiencies that helped offset higher costs.

“The combination of higher home prices and interest rates have clearly impacted recent home buying activity, especially at higher price points, which we anticipated two years ago when we undertook our strategy to build more affordable homes to cater to the expanding entry-level and move-down markets,” explained Mr. Hilton. “We’ve made tremendous progress in shifting toward more affordably-priced homes, which represented one-third of our communities and 43% of our total orders in the third quarter. The fact that these communities are selling at a faster pace than higher-end move-up communities reinforces our confidence and commitment to furthering that strategy.”

He continued, “Underlying economic and housing market fundamentals remain strong. Employment is high, wages are growing, consumer confidence is high and inventories of affordable homes are low. These conditions offer opportunities for Meritage and the entry-level LiVE.NOW.® communities we have in our pipeline.

"We expect continued demand for entry-level homes will exceed that for move-up homes over the long term, though the next couple of quarters may be more challenging, and we have therefore adjusted our expectations for the remainder of 2018 based on the recent softness we’ve seen in the overall market,” said Mr. Hilton. “We are now projecting approximately 8,300-8,500 home closings and total home closing revenue of $3.375-3.475 billion for the full year 2018. We also expect home closing gross margin for the full year to be approximately 18% and are projecting pre-tax earnings of $265-285 million for the year."

Mr. Hilton added, “We announced an authorization by our board last quarter to repurchase up to $100 million of Meritage Homes stock. We have purchased more than $29 million from cash on hand so far and we expect to complete additional repurchases over the coming quarters.”

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