KB Home (NYSE: KBH) reported early Tuesday that its first-quarter loss widened to $114.5 million, or $1.49 a share, from a loss of $54.5 million, or 71 cents a share, in the year-ago period. The latest period included a one-time impairment cost of $54.5 million. Revenue dropped to $196.9 million, from $264 million. Analysts, on average, expected the company to report a loss of $0.27 a share on revenue of $224.20 million.
Company-wide net orders in the first quarter of 2011 totaled 1,302, compared to 1,913 in the prior year's first quarter. At February 28, 2011, the Company had 1,689 homes in backlog representing approximately $353.6 million in projected future housing revenues, compared to a backlog of 2,713 homes representing approximately $523.8 million in projected future housing revenues at February 28, 2010.
"Despite the many headwinds that persist in today's housing markets, our year-over-year pretax results, excluding noncash charges and the loss on loan guaranty, improved for the fourth consecutive quarter," said Jeffrey Mezger, president and chief executive officer. Our first-quarter comparisons for both net orders and deliveries were negatively impacted by the temporarily elevated level of activity from the federal homebuyer tax credit that was available during the year-earlier period. As this year's spring selling season has commenced, we are encouraged by the higher traffic we experienced in the first quarter compared to a year ago, as well as the sequential improvement in our monthly net order levels during the quarter. While there is still uncertainty as to when a sustained housing recovery may occur, we believe that our operational business model and proven strategies will continue to provide us with a competitive advantage as we navigate through these persistently challenging times."
Full Disclosure: None.
