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KB Home (KBH) Lifts Community Count With Fieldstone in California

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KB Home (KBH - Free Report) recently announced the opening of Fieldstone, a brand-new community with ranch-style homes, in the most delightful city of Hughson, CA. This is in sync with the company’s strategy to boost community count, with the increase sequentially starting in the second quarter and continuing through the remainder of the year.

The community’s single-storey floor plans provide up to five bedrooms and two baths, with a floor area close to 1500-2300 square feet. Fieldstone provides its homebuyers the choice to custom-build their new home. The single storied home at Central Valley starts at the affordable price tag of $400,000.

With respect to this, Oren Hershkovich, President of KB Home’s North Bay and Central Valley division, stated, “Fieldstone’s affordably priced new homes are convenient to Highway 99 for a quick commute to Modesto, Turlock and the area’s major employers. The community is close to Hughson’s charming downtown, shopping, dining and entertainment, and a short drive to outdoor recreation at Bear Valley, the Tuolumne River, Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Nevada Mountains.”

KB Home is one of the largest and most recognized homebuilders in the United States for the past 60 years. With the addition of these new communities, the company now operates in 42 markets across eight states and serves a wide range of buyer groups. KB Home is the first builder to make every home ENERGY STAR certified.

Community Expansion to Drive Top Line

The company’s solid backlog level, a strong line-up of community openings and return-focused growth model will help KB Home generate as much as $6 billion in housing revenues and double-digit operating margin in fiscal 2021. However, owing to a temporary pause in land development and construction activity, the company’s average community count for fourth-quarter 2020 dropped 8% year over year to 234. Quarter-end community count of 236 was down 6% from a year ago. Nonetheless, it has been working hard to rebuild community count, encouraging KB Home to expect higher community count beginning second-half 2021.

During the fourth quarter, its monthly absorption pace per community accelerated to 5.6 net orders, representing a year-over-year increase of 51%.

Additionally, the company’s net orders began to rebound significantly from April 2020, with rise in housing demand. KB Home anticipates higher community count beginning second-half 2021. The company expects to achieve significant growth in scale and profits in fiscal 2021.

Share Performance

Shares of the company have surged 16% in the past six months compared with the industry’s 14.4% rally. Nonetheless, earnings estimates have moved up 16% over the past 30 days, depicting analysts’ optimism over the company’s growth potential. The company’s price performance was mainly backed by an impressive earnings surprise history, having surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in 19 out of the trailing 21 quarters.


Zacks Rank & Other Key Picks

Currently, KB Home carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Other top-ranked stocks in the Zacks Building Products - Home Builders industry include D.R. Horton, Inc. (DHI - Free Report) , Lennar Corporation (LEN - Free Report) and M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. .

While D.R. Horton and Lennar currently sport a Zacks Rank #1, M.D.C. Holdings carries a Zacks Rank #2.

D.R. Horton’s fiscal 2021 earnings are likely to grow 25.1%.

Lennar’s fiscal 2021 earnings are expected to rise 8.3%.

M.D.C. Holdings surpassed earnings estimates in three of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 19.6%.

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