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PCA/NFWF Native Plant Conservation Initiative 1995 Projects
Cape Florida Restoration (FL)
Diverse partnership of governmental agencies, universities, scientists, and conservation organizations will train volunteers to restore hundreds of acres of sensitive habitat in Key Biscayne, Florida.
Grantee: American Littoral Society
Cirsium pitcherii Study (MI)
Federal agencies, conservation organizations, and private landowners will work together to inventory and control the exotic pest plant, baby's breath, which threatens pitcher's thistle, a listed species.
Grantee: National Park Service, Sleeping Bear Dunes NL
Dade County Biological Monitoring (FL)
Develop a management program for endangered plants in Dade County, Florida. Program will serve as a model to improve management of remnants of endangered native habitats in all urban areas.
Grantee: Fairchild Tropical Garden
Hawaiian Rare Plant Conservation (HI)
Conduct propogation research on 36 species of plants native to the Hawaiian Islands. Collect fresh seeds or cutting on islands of Hawaii, Kauai, Maui, Molokai, and Oahu. Studies resulted in the successful growing of 16 species.
Grantee: National Tropical Botanical Garden
Jemez Mountains Survey (NM)
Conduct field surveys in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico to supply public and private land managers with credible baseline information on the location and status of sensitive plant resources and habitats.
Grantee: National Park Service
Monterey Pine Forest Assessment (CA)
Protect and restore threatened pine forest habitat near Monterey, California. This forest is home to at least a dozen rare plant species.
Grantee: California Native Plant Society
New England Plant Conservation (CT,MA,ME,NH,RI,VT)
Form a consortium of governmental agencies and conservation organizations working with public and private landowners to protect and manage New England's most threatened native plants.
Grantee: New England Wild Flower Society
Plant Curriculum Development (WA)
Develop a model environmental education curriculum for the Washington state school system. Threats to native plant species and efforts for their conservation will be a focus of this curriculum.
Grantee: USDA-Forest Service, Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest
Rare Ecosytem Stewardship (CA)
Study the rare and endangered plant populations of the Presidio of San Francisco and create educational materials about rare and endangered plant species including a coloring book, a natural history brochure, and a slide show.
Grantee: Golden Gate National Park Association
Wildflower PSA Video (NC)
Develop and distribute six public service announcements encouraging understanding of and support for national and regional native plant conservation efforts.
Grantee: Laurel Hill Press
Back to NFWF Grant Program

subset: commoncrawl


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There's nothing I enjoy more than browsing through beautifully styled images featuring pretty, delicate new designers pieces. From dresses to headpieces, shoes, the works – I'm in heaven as long as the photography and imagery is beautiful.
Etsy sellers often ask me 'what will make our products stand out to you? How can we get them blogged?'.
The answer? Shots like this will…
Photography Copyright (c) 2013, Sandra Åberg Photography for Jannie Baltzer
Don't get me wrong. I know not every designer, especially the new one starting out, can afford a styling team
to get their marketing campaigns out there, but collaborative
opportunities are there for the making (that's what Twitter and Facebook are for!) and whilst product shots have
their place, beautifully styled images like this are what our blog
readers will fall in love with and what I am looking for to feature on Love My Dress.
Jannie Baltzer is a designer who markets her product brilliantly. Every single image here makes me want to buy one of her pieces – it gets under my skin and in to my psyche. I want to run my fingers over the hand-crafted elegance and to be able to find a pretty jewellery box in order to store away my delicious, precious design. I also love the ethereal, mother nature touch to these images. The natural light, the leaves and green, I can imagine the whole serene scene during shooting (it was probably nothing like that and hectic as whilst creating these images, but I'm totally won over by their portrayed image of beauty, serenity and bridal grace).
I'm also a little smitten with the bridal wear by Katya Katya Shehurina in this shoot…
told me more about her brand new couture designs for brides, which
really do offer something fresh and incredibly beautiful to the bridal
headpiece scene…
"My 2014 collection is truly luxurious and delicate,
and is all about luminous textures and shine. This collection has exquisitely
intricate beadwork and beautiful shades of honey gold, champagne, antique
silver and ivory. My parents live in a small village in South of Spain, and the
nature is just so beautiful there. So this collection is inspired by the beauty
of the nature and its organic shapes.
The curl of a leaf, skeleton leaves,
delicate flowers and branches – these are all exquisite things that catch my
eye and find their way into my making."
Jannie Baltzer ships her accessories worldwide. For further information on her beautiful new collection, please visit the Jannie Baltzer website, from where you can purchase your favourite design. Jannie is also on Facebook and Twitter.
Will you be investing in one of these incredibly beautiful pieces?
Designs: Jannie Baltzer
Photographer: Sandra Åberg Photography
Hair & Make: Camilla Jonsson
Dresses: Katya Katya Shehurina
Model: Faye @Le Management


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40 - 48 Final
No one has shouted yet.
Be the first!
Be the first!
Who You Got?
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He told the Senate Budget Committee that the forces restraining the US economy over the past year were starting to diminish and growth was beginning to pick up.
Against sterling, the European currency was almost half a penny weaker at 61.25p. Kamal Sharma, currency analyst at Commerzbank, predicted it has further to fall.
- More about:
- Commerzbank AG


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Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the D.R. Horton, America's Builder, the largest builder in the United States Second Quarter 2013 Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Donald Tomnitz, President and CEO for D.R. Horton. Thank you, Mr. Tomnitz, you may begin.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Thank you, and good morning. Joining me this morning are Bill Wheat, Executive Vice President and CFO; Stacey Dwyer, Executive Vice President and Treasurer; and (Mike Murray), Senior Vice President.
As usual, before we get started, Stacey?
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: Some comments made on this call may constitute forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although, D.R. Horton believes any such statements are based on reasonable assumptions, there is no assurance that actual outcomes will not be materially different. All forward-looking statements are based upon information available to D.R. Horton on the date of this conference call and D.R. Horton does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.
Additional information about issues that could lead to material changes in performance is contained in D.R. Horton's Annual Report on Form 10-K, and our most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q, both of which are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Don?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: The spring selling season is in full swing, especially for D.R. Horton. Demand for homes have strengthened and the relative available housing supply has shrunk, which has created a favorable pricing environment. Our first-time buyer demand remains very strong and we continue to see improving demand from move-up buyers. We are well positioned to meet the increasing demand across our broad geographic footprint with our inventory of homes available for sale and with the land and lot position we've accumulated over the past three to four years.
Our team of operators across the country delivered an outstanding second quarter. They generated significant sales and revenue growth along with substantial improvements in profit margins and returns, which resulted in our pre-tax income more than tripling last year's levels.
Overall, the first half of fiscal year 2013 was nothing short of phenomenal, and we expect the second half to be even better. Bill?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: In the second quarter, our consolidated pre-tax income increased 236% to $142.1 million from $42.3 million in the year ago quarter. Our pre-tax income as a percentage of consolidated revenue was 9.9%, an increase of 550 basis points from 4.4% in the prior year quarter, reflecting significant improvement in both our homebuilding and financial services operations.
Compared to the year-ago quarter, homebuilding pre-tax income increased to $127.4 million from $34.6 million and financial services pre-tax income increased to $14.7 million from $7.7 million.
Net income for the second quarter increased 173% to $111 million, or $0.32 per diluted share, compared to $40.6 million or $0.13 per diluted share in the year ago quarter. Our net income for the quarter included a non-cash tax benefit of $18.7 million from a reduction of the valuation allowance on our deferred tax asset. (Mike)?
Mike Murray - SVP: Our second quarter home sales revenues increased 47% to $1.4 billion on 5,643 homes closed, up from $930.6 million on 4,240 homes closed in the year ago quarter. Our average closing price for the quarter was $242,500, up 10% compared to the prior year, driven primarily by pricing power and to a lesser extent by a larger average home size. Don?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: The value of our net sales orders increased 52% from last year due to increased volume and home prices. Our net sales orders increased 34% to 7,879 homes on a 15% increase in active selling communities. Our average sales price on net sales orders of $253,400 increased 14% compared to the year ago quarter. The cancellation rate for the second quarter was 19% compared to 22% in the year ago quarter.
The value of our backlog increased 76% from a year ago to $2.4 billion, with an average sales price per home of $249,800. Homes in backlog increased 54% from the prior year to 9,553 homes. Our backlog conversion rate for the quarter was 77%, compared to 94% on the prior year quarter. We expect this rate will continue to revert closer to historical seasonal norms. For the third quarter, we expect our conversion rate to be in the low 70% range. We have continued to see a solid sales pace (durable). Stacey?
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: Our gross profit margin on home sales revenue in the second quarter was 20.4% up 280 basis points from the year ago period. 210 basis points of the margin increase was due to improving market conditions, resulting in reduced incentives and higher average selling prices and excessive cost increases. 40 basis points of the margin was due to lower amortized interest and property taxes, and 30 basis points was due to lower estimated cost for warranty and construction defect claims as a percentage of home sales revenue.
Sequentially, our gross margin on home sales revenue improved 160 basis points of which 30 basis points was due to improving market conditions. The additional 130 basis points of the increase was due to lower relative costs for warranty and construction defect claims as a percentage of home sales revenue with approximately 40 basis points of the 130 basis points due to a higher level of cash reimbursement of previously incurred litigation costs received during this quarter compared to our Q1. We expect to see continued improvement in our home sales gross margin from improving market conditions for the rest of the year. For the third quarter, we expect a home sales gross margin of approximately 20%. (Mike)?
Mike Murray - SVP: Homebuilding SG&A expense for the quarter was $155.1 million compared to $127.5 million in the prior year quarter. As a percentage of homebuilding revenues, SG&A improved 240 basis points to 11.2% from 13.6%. We are leveraging our fixed cost structure while at the same time, building our sales and production capabilities where necessary to meet our increasing demand. We expect our SG&A as a percentage of homebuilding revenues to be below 11% for the remainder of the fiscal year. The improvements in our gross profit and SG&A percentages and a decrease in our direct interest expense expanded our homebuilding pretax margin to an industry-leading 9.2% in the current quarter, an increase of 550 basis points from 3.7% in the year-ago quarter. Stacey?
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: Financial services pretax income for the quarter was $14.7 million compared to $7.7 million in the year-ago quarter. 86% of our mortgage company's loan originations during the quarter related to homes closed by our homebuilding operations. Our mortgage company handled the financing for 58% of our homebuyers this quarter with virtually all loans meeting eligibility requirements for sale to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae. FHA and VA loans accounted for 49% of our mortgage company's volume this quarter, down from 57% in the year ago quarter.
Our mortgage company's new borrowers during the quarter had an average FICO score of 723 and an average loan-to-value ratio of 90%. First-time homebuyers represented 47% of the closings handled by our mortgage company this quarter, compared to 49% in the year-ago quarter. Bill?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: At March 31, after considering the impact of our improving profits, we concluded that it was more likely than not, that we would realize more of our deferred tax assets from state net operating loss carry forwards before they expire than we previously anticipated. As a result, we reduced our deferred tax asset valuation allowance by $18.7 million in the quarter, which reduced our income tax expense this quarter. (Mike)?
Mike Murray - SVP: Since December, our construction in progress and finished homes inventory increased by approximately $207 million. We had 15,800 homes in inventory at the end of March, up 1,600 homes from last quarter and up 4,700 homes from year ago. As of March 31, 1,200 of our homes were models, 7,600 were speculative homes and 2,300 of the specs were completed. We expect to continue to increase our homes in inventory to meet demand and we expect our average community count for the remainder of the fiscal year to remain end of 15% higher than last year. Don?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: In our second fiscal quarter, our investments in lots, land, and development cost totaled $460 million as we continue to find new communities and build our lot supply to meet increasing demand. Of the $460 million, $217 million was used to purchase finished lots, $110 million was to purchase land, and $133 million was for land development cost. We expect our development spending will increase over the next few quarters.
At March 31, 2013, we control approximately 175,000 lots, of which 120,000 are owned and 55,000 are option. 30,000 of our owned lots and 28,000 of our option lots are finished. The 58,000 total finished lots we control at quarter-end are up 23% from a year ago. Bill?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: Our total available liquidity at March 31 was $1.7 billion which include homebuilding unrestricted cash of $1.1 billion and available capacity on our revolving credit facility of $559 million. The balance of our public notes outstanding at March 31 was $3 billion dollars and we had no cash borrowings on our revolver. $172 million of our notes mature In May 2013 and we have a total of $317 million of senior note maturities in the next 12 months.
At March 31, our homebuilding leverage ratio, net of cash, was 33.7%, and our gross homebuilding leverage was 44.7%. Don?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: In closing, this quarter was D.R. Horton's most profitable second quarter since 2006, with $142 million of pre-tax income. All of our operating metrics improved dramatically on a year-over-year basis this quarter. The value of our sales, closings, and backlog increased by 52%, 47% and 76%, respectively. Our pretax income increased 236%. Our pretax income margin increased 550 basis points to 9.9%. Our gross margin on home sales revenues increased 280 basis points. Our SG&A as a percentage of homebuilding revenues improved 240 basis points, and we are continuing to experience pricing power in many of our markets as evidenced by a 14% increase in average sales price. D.R. and I would like to personally thank all of our D.R. Horton teammates. We have accomplished all of this with only a 29% increase in employees year-over-year.
Our team is consistently the most efficient in terms of closings per employee and I'm really pleased to share with you that this quarter, we sold more homes, closed more homes, generated more revenue, earned more PTI and had a higher PTI margin than any other builder.
We are in a great position as a Company. We will clearly in 2013; be the homes closed, revenue, PTI, and PTI percentage, leading builder for the year. So, as (indiscernible) used to say, stop for a moment and we should smell the roses for our major accomplishments and get right back to work so we can continue to outperform our competition. D.R. and I thank you for the great work.
This concludes our prepared remarks. Now, we'll host any questions.
Operator: Dan Oppenheim, Credit Suisse.
Dan Oppenheim - Credit Suisse: You were talking about the land investment there saying this could be more interest development. There's so much in terms of the purchases during the fourth calendar quarter of last year, some tax related sales I think that sort of benefited you on the purchasing side. How much do you think about in terms of just adding more land here versus just developing what you currently have?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Well we're focused on clearly, Dan, developing what we have. Obviously, our goal is to bring what we purchased especially in the last calendar year into production, so as we say build, sell, close homes and make money on those units. We are continuing to add land deals and anticipate obviously developing those in markets where the option lots are becoming shorter and shorter in supply. Clearly, based upon the number of option lots that we added to our portfolio, we're able to still find option lots that were finished and finding also developed lots on an option basis but there are markets where we're going to have to supplement the third-party developers, as well as the finished option lots with land that we have to develop for ourselves and of course we've been very adept at that over the years given the sales pace we're seeing, the demand we're seeing, the pricing and dynamics we're seeing, we would expect to still be investing strongly in finished lot, land and development in the coming quarters as we have been so far this year.
Dan Oppenheim - Credit Suisse: And then in terms of just the margins, I think you talked about then doing – pushing pricing with the – return on price up. How are you – we've heard lots of different thoughts from the course of actually this week here in terms of the earnings releases from different builders in terms of the thoughts on pushing price versus continuing to increase absorption at this point. How are you balancing the two right now?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Well, clearly you can see that we increased our sales and our closings this quarter dramatically all the while, while dramatically improving our margins. We think we're in a wonderful position. There is a shortage of finished homes in the marketplace. So not only with our good inventory of specs that we consistently have maintained in this Company. We will continue to push price as well as volume. Clearly, we've said before, our goal is to improve the bottom line better than we improve the top line, but nevertheless we're in a position where we can do both.
Operator: Stephen East, ISI Group.
Stephen East - ISI Group: Great results; pretty impressive.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Great quote, by the way this morning, I think it's my favorite all-time quote.
Stephen East - ISI Group: Well, I think that was truly the case. To follow on what Dan was talking about on the land side, maybe a little bit more, what are you all seeing in the pricing of land and are there any markets that it's just very difficult to make land pencil? And then if you look at your communities that you're opening right now and that you've got opened, what percentage of that is previously mothballed or that either you're (RDN) or will be opening?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Actually I was on the phone with one of our regional presidents this morning, David Auld and we were talking about how we are very fortunate that we were early mover in terms of finding land positions a year ago and two years ago, because our basis on that land – to answer your question directly, is very attractive, relative to where pricing is on land today. Specifically, land prices have escalated in most markets rather dramatically over the last six to 12 months. We're very conservative in terms of our approach because we don't need to buy that much new land to support what we see over the next two years as our net sales and our net closings. But clearly, land prices have (indiscernible). As far as mothballed assets, Bill?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: In terms of deliveries on mothballed assets, that's still a very small amount of our overall deliveries but we are – certainly with the improved pricing environment, improved demand, we are bringing – starting to bring more mothballed communities into our production. So we will see some impact from that and that's certainly a very good source of capital for us as we will not have to purchase the land, we'll just have to put the development cost in. You will see that on our balance sheet; our land held for development balance declined this quarter down to $602 million as compared to $630 million last quarter, and we would expect to bring even more projects out of mothball over the coming quarters as things continue to improve.
Dan Oppenheim - Credit Suisse: And then if we go back to – you talked about the majority of your pricing, what was true pricing power; not mix shift. Could you give us a little more color on that and just what you're seeing on the cost side, so we can understand what type of magnitude you have on pricing power versus the cost inflation?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Certainly, there is cost inflation out there. One of the things that we've been able to do clearly is raise prices faster than what our costs have been going up. We control our costs both on a national, regional, and then also on a division by division basis. At this point, we are still clearly the largest builder in the clubhouse, and by virtue of that, we have more purchasing power than most of our competitors and it's been a focus of this Company for years to focus on our sticks and brick which is what we're doing.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: In terms of specifics on the pricing power versus mix shift, our average selling price per square foot year-over-year for this quarter increased 7.6%. The average square footage of the homes that we closed this quarter increased 3.7% from last year, so that's mix between pricing and size of the home. In terms of our cost increases, those were up on a per square foot basis, 3.8% year-over-year. So, we still have a very good gap between our selling price increases versus our cost increases.
Operator: Michael Roxland, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Michael Roxland - Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Just wanted to follow-up on a comment you made on the last call regarding California, and then you had some reservations about investing there to the economy and really is it the fact that there's not been a widespread housing recovery in that state as compared to some of the other states you're involved in? Are you still witnessing those same type of issues that you witnessed in this past quarter? What's occurred since then, because it certainly stands in contrast to what some of your peers have been indicating?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: Obviously, we were more conservative last quarter in California, but the record speaks for itself this quarter, and California for us is doing very well now. We've made some major investments in land and lots over the course of this quarter, and we're well positioned to capitalize on what is turning out to be a better than expected California housing recovery.
Michael Roxland - Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Do you happen to have a sense of like what's driving the recovery in California, and can you talk to us of some of the specific markets within the state of California that are doing well for you?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: Well, I'm going to refrain from speaking about any specific markets again. I promised myself that a couple of years ago, but I would say to you, I think what is driving in the Bay Area, clearly technology is still driving that market as well as what I've understood is there are a lot more money managers in the Bay Area, over the course of the past two years, actually employees managing the money of the technology industry in Northern California. And Southern California, I think it's just purely people buying homes because they're more affordable than they have been in a long, long period of time. So, there are people who are able to sell their homes for the first time in a long time and then they're able to do their trade-up and downsize and capitalize on the potential of having more appreciation on a new home versus the existing home that they're currently living in.
Michael Roxland - Bank of America Merrill Lynch: And then just quickly Don, I know you mentioned brief in your comments that trends that you've seen thus far in April have persisted. So it sounds like there's really been no change in momentum, so the sales pace has been relatively consistent thus far in (mid), in the fiscal third quarter?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Absolutely.
Michael Roxland - Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Got it. Thank you very much. Good luck for the balance of the year.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Thank you.
Operator: Michael Rehaut, JPMorgan.
Michael Rehaut - JPMorgan: Good morning and congrats on the quarter.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Thank you, Michael.
Michael Rehaut - JPMorgan: The first question I had was on the gross margins. You mentioned that price continues to outpace cost and the breakout of that was very helpful, so thank you for that. At the same time, you're looking at gross margins flat sequentially going into the third quarter and certainly I understand part of that perhaps is with timing of the warranty cost that helped you sequentially this quarter. But at the same time, would it be fair to say, as long as these trends continue that – I don't know if 4Q is too premature to talk about, but as we look into next year that that the 20% at least for the rest of this year is sustainable and as long as trends hold we could expect some further expansion into fiscal '14?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: Yeah, it all comes into what's in your crystal ball, (Mike). If trends continue, if we continue to see double-digit pricing increases, we would expect that margins would continue to increase, but when we're looking at a land deal, we don't factor in a future price appreciation into our assumptions in order to just file a land deal; we take a similar approach in our overall expectations in the business. Certainly, if things continue at this pace, we'll see some further improvement, but based on what we see right now, what's in our backlog, we're comfortable with our guidance for next quarter.
Michael Rehaut - JPMorgan: Also, Don, you made an interesting comment at the beginning of the year – at the beginning of the call rather, about first-time buyer demand remaining very strong but move-up demand improving, and maybe not to read too much into the exact word-by-word, but most of the builders who've kind of talked about over the past year, really the move-up buyer being the strong element so far and more waiting for the first-time buyer to come back or demonstrate the same type of strength that that the move-up has, then it almost seems like your comments were in reverse that the first time was more the bedrock, remaining very strong in the move-up improving. So, am I reading that right or interpreting that right in – is the first-time better for you guys than maybe you feel some of your peers are, and are you just therefore – but on the move-up side more aggressively addressing that market given the strength there as well?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Yes, to answer your question. As you know, we've focused on the first-time buyer for years at this Company and we still believe that's the largest component of the home market, and we're priced very competitively in the marketplace and can compete and we're able to offer buyers who're moving out of apartments a more attractively priced home due to our low cost and our volume. So, it's natural for us, given our size, to be able to offer a more competitively priced first-time homebuyer opportunity for those people moving out of their apartments, and as we mentioned to you probably a year and a half ago, we began a significant focus on the move-up buyer and we are penetrating that market very well and we expect that part of our business to continue to grow as it has.
Michael Rehaut - JPMorgan: One last quick one if I could. The financial services profit ticked down about $3 million sequentially despite homebuilding revenue up and land financial services revenue flat. Anything going on there, and how should we think about that in terms of the profitability going forward?
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: Our financial services segment has slightly different timing than the home builder because a lot of their revenue is recognized when they sell the loans. So, at the end of the fourth quarter – our calendar fourth quarter, they had very large mortgage loans held for sale balance, which then they sell during our first quarter and recognize that gain on sale. The mortgage loans held for sale at the end of the December quarter are lower and so the amount of gain that they recognize this quarter is a little bit lower. It's just a timing difference.
Michael Rehaut - JPMorgan: So, it could drift up a little bit throughout the rest of the year?
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: Yes, as there are mortgage loans held for sale, it could drift up if the market conditions and the margins hold.
Operator: Ken Zener, KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Ken Zener - KeyBanc Capital Markets: Can you talk about the mix in gross margins? Your ability to build and sell spec homes has obviously helped you absorb a lot of fixed SG&A cost through the bottom, but I think there's still a misconception among investors that spec homes have to be at a lower margin than the homes in backlog. We think it actually could be an area that's giving you upside on gross margins as homes that you build in January are locked in backlog at a certain price, but actually go up as the market goes up. So could you talk about the spread in spec versus backlog; how much that impacted your second quarter results? And if your 20% number is just focused on your backlog margin expectations as opposed to what might flow through on spec homes?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: I'll let Bill handle the second part of that question. Frankly, where we are today we see a shortage of finished new homes in the marketplace. So by virtue of having the specs that we have out there, we have tremendous pricing power on our specs. We have a number of people who are listing their homes, and as one of our people in Lego who runs our environmental force, he listed his home and had four offers in three days. So people are listing their homes and selling them a lot more quickly than what they've anticipated, and to the extent that we have a spec inventory that we have out there, which has been a tradition of this Company, then in essence we have had significant pricing power in our specs. Our specs used to be slightly less in terms of margins in our build jobs and that has somehow reversed itself.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: Recently, we have seen some trends where some spec margins have been higher than pre-sales; we don't expect that. It'd be the long-term trend but in an environment where we're seeing rising pricing, that certainly can happen. And obviously, with our spec inventory, then that's certainly a benefit to our margins right now. As a matter of fact, currently with our sales demand, we're having – our spec level is slightly lower than what we prefer to have it, because as we released (indiscernible), we're selling more rapidly than we anticipate.
Ken Zener - KeyBanc Capital Markets: Could you maybe give us a little context then to – not necessarily the peak in '05 but what it was doing in '03, '04, was it common for spec to be in line with your backlog homes or was your backlog tied to some optionality always a bit higher? If you could give us a context, that would be appreciated?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: We don't have the specific data on that from that period, but I would suspect back in a period when there were significant pricing increase, we were probably seeing a similar trend of what we're seeing right now.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: As a matter of fact back then, we were hoping that people (indiscernible) and we could resell the home for more. We're not in that current situation, but currently, we have adequate number of specs out there to meet the demand. We're trying to increase our specs because we anticipate increasing demand and to the extent as I said that we have a home ready for a buyer who sells our home more quickly than anticipated. It's a great position, and please don't forget, realtors are a large percentage of our sales, and realtors like one thing, they love to collect their commission more quickly. So when you have a spec home, they typically collect their commission within 30 days to 45 days as opposed to if they sell a bill job, they're having to wait 3 months to 4 months to collect their commission.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: And as we have long said, the key to being successful with specs is to manage them very carefully and obviously it's been part of our business model for a long time. So even though we're in a period right now where we're rising prices, we're still going to stay disciplined and we're going to manage our specs effectively.
Operator: Adam Rudiger, Wells Fargo.
Adam Rudiger - Wells Fargo: Don, I have a big picture question, and you've kind of alluded to some of the answers a little bit but I wanted to ask you more concisely, despite the likelihood, I think that we're probably in the early innings of a multiyear recovery. It looks like now you and some of your peers are already starting to generate what you, I think, you would consider, normalized margins and so, to me there's somewhat of a disconnect there. So, I was wondering what you thought about what that means for the next few years in terms of already achieving what might be a normal margin well ahead of kind of mid cycle or normal production levels?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Well, we're not going to argue with having achieved it earlier than we anticipated, because it's a beautiful thing after the last five years in our industry, and I've thought about what your question is and not to be negative but to be realistic, our margin increases have been dramatic to the extent that we're able to improve our margins as much in the future as what we certainly have done on this past quarter. You'd have to probably question as to whether we could improve them that much on a go forward basis quarter after quarter after quarter. Clearly, as we continue to do the volume that we're doing, I'm so proud of our people because we clearly will be the leader in the clubhouse, both on units as well as revenue this year. We are definitely experiencing more purchasing power than our peers and that's really our goal. Our goal has always been to keep our SG&A as little as possible in this Company, but also to be very proactive and controlling our stick and brick cost, and our volume helps us do that dramatically.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: And if you look back over history through cycles, even though we talk about a normalized margin of wanting to be a 20% gross, 10% SG&A, 10% on the bottom line, what we have seen during the up part of the cycle in the past when pricing has been going up is we have seen margins above that level, over the long-term average, it kind of averages out to the 20, but we've certainly seen periods where it's been above the 20 and we're hopeful that if trends continue that we'll see some of that.
Adam Rudiger - Wells Fargo: I guess, Bill, it's an interesting point, you talk about that above 20, I mean, it looks like without having, perfectly checking my model, it looks like those years were – really just the exceptions were 2004, '05 and '06, so what I'm kind of wondering is if we think that's going to repeat itself in terms of the margin potential, or is the goal to be big and the goal to be scaling your markets and the goal to take market share going to kind of erase a little bit of that margin potentially or cap it?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: The goal is always to strike the best balance. Scale and volume helps drive some efficiencies and helps drive some bottom line profitability in margins and returns, but we'll always want to balance that. So, I don't think one supersedes the other.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: I would say after being in the industry for 33 years and I'll celebrate my 30th anniversary at Horton in August; 20% and 10% and 10% is pretty much a – it's a good return. And to the extent that our gross margins are higher than that and our SG&A is lower, I think to a certain extent that's largely an anomaly in this business, and you're going to have years where you're going to do that and you better pack away the earnings and stick them away for the days when you're going to be back to 16% and 17% margin. So, clearly, I think where we see the business year after year after year, if we can maintain a 20% gross margin, a 10% SG&A and 10% at the pre-tax line, that's a beautiful scenario.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: You take (that) one that's better, but you don't get too caught up in it.
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: And we do think this is a period of when it's better, because there is a shortage of supply (convert) at the current level with the demand on housing, and we alluded earlier, we are seeing land prices increase because there is shortage of finished lots available to construct the houses. So, we've got that inventory, so we think we can take advantage of the current environment and increase our margin some going forward.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: We don't have to go out and buy land at today's price just to hit any sort of growth targets. We will still reinvest, but we're in a very good position on land we already own, houses that we can build and put in inventory so to deliver strong growth and strong margins.
Operator: Susan Maklari, UBS.
Susan Maklari - UBS: I want to go back and I have a land question, but I want to ask it in a slightly different way in the sense that as you buy more land that needs to developed, how does that inhibit your ability to adjust your community count growth and given that maybe not for this year so much, but in terms of thinking about maybe for 2014 and going forward, how you balance the need to have lots that can be delivered more quickly to be more flexible to community count relative to needing to develop land?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: I think as the market recovers, there will be another party that enters into the fray and that will be the third-party developer. So, as a result, in the past, we've always had a good group of third-party developers who've had helped us provides lots for a lot of inventory. Obviously with the banks over the last five years and they're beginning to slightly increase their lending, but we are seeing third-party developers qualifying for development loans. So as a result, our existing land development will be augmented via third-party developers, and that will continue to increase as the housing market continues to improve; because as the housing market continues to improve, there's no doubt in my mind that the banks will begin lending once again.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: There is certainly a longer lead time to opening a community when you buy land and have to develop it yourself versus buying finished lots, but it's a very local decision and each one of our operators in the local markets understands where their positions are, whether communities need to be replaced and whether accounts make sense to add and they account for that lead time in planning to buy land and bringing into production and open communities. So is definitely a difference in timing but as Don said before, we expect there will be other opportunities that may not exist today for some finished lot developers to be in place to help support our growth as well.
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: That's one of the reasons we give you our finished lot count and not just our total lot count, because with 58,000 finished lots, we should be able to have some time to adjust to the demand levels that we're seeing and react without running out of blocks.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: I assure you one thing we won't do. We will not run out of lots.
Susan Maklari - UBS: In terms of the third party coming back in, are there any specific markets where you're seeing that maybe take hold more than in other areas?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Susan, I've made myself a promise, I'm just not going to get more specific because I – over the past years, I think it's been benefited our competitors more than it has our analysts, so as a result, if you want to follow-up with that question with Stacey or Jessica later, they'll try to help you with that.
Operator: Jade Rahmani, KBW.
Jade Rahmani - KBW: On the land spend, what percentage are option exercises on deals that you tied up in the past?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Well, any deal where we bought finished lots; it would have been tied up under an option contract. We don't have the aging of when the contracts were signed though in terms of the buys or anything like that, but clearly, still a substantial portion of our spend was on finished lots.
Jade Rahmani - KBW: Are you seeing developers increasingly look to build participation into the option deals that they're structuring?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: I've seen that decrease. Personally reviewing every land deal in the Company along with Bill and Stacey, I will tell you that, two years ago and even a year ago, we saw more profit participation from built developers than we are today and I don't know why that is but we're not seeing very much of it today, and every time we have a chance we push back on that because we deserve the upside, but not as much today as what it was a year, year and half ago.
Jade Rahmani - KBW: Just wanted to ask on SG&A. Simple question is, how do you look at the growth in SG&A on a year-over-year basis? This quarter's growth was less than half of the revenue growth, and do you expect that kind of relationship to continue?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: That's pretty good. Our long-term target on SG&A is 10%, and we're certainly rapidly moving in that direction and we would expect if things continue, we will get there, maybe not quite this year, but we will get there. And as we grow, we certainly have to add infrastructure, we have to add people, and as we add new communities, we add expenses. But there have been periods where we've been below 10% when we've seen a lot of pricing increases. And so, we could see a period below 10%, but again, 10% is a long-term average; we're still striving to get there.
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: We started to see very good SG&A leverage towards the back half of last year; so continuing to see the same level of year-over-year improvement of that same ratio you mentioned between incremental revenue and SG&A. We'd probably be a little bit aggressive, but we do feel that we are working our way back down toward the 10%, and as we said, we expect to be under 11% for the balance of the year.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: And please don't recall, we are the most efficient in the industry, we still close and sell more homes for employee than anyone else, and I'm astounded when I look at the number for the quarter when we year-over-year increased our employee count by 29%, but yet our sales, closings, and backlog values increased 52%, 47%, and 76% respectively. We leveraged our overhead extraordinarily well.
Operator: Joel Locker, FBN Securities.
Joel Locker - FBN Securities: Just one or two – I guess, get behind the – you mentioned brokers before, and wanted to see what the participation rate from outside brokers were in the second quarter closing? What that was a year ago?
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: We typically run somewhere between about 60% and 70% participation from brokers.
Joel Locker - FBN Securities: And has that changed at all or…?
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: Not significantly.
Joel Locker - FBN Securities: Not significantly. And just on community count, did you guys mention what it was up sequentially and up year-over-year?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: Year-over-year was – on active selling communities was up 15%. I don't believe we gave the sequential number and that was up about a 5%...
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: 5%
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: Yeah, up 5% sequentially.
Joel Locker - FBN Securities: 5%. And just a follow-up on that, how much – how many communities do you plan to open in the last two quarters of 2013 and what are slated to open in 2014, if you have some kind of ballpark…?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: We're planning on opening every community that meets our current underwriting guidelines which is a combination of gross margin and return on capital, and I don't mean to not answer your question, but we're aggressively pursuing land and lot positions in most – every one of our markets, and to the extent that our conservative underwriting guidelines are met, we're on the deal.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: We do expect our selling communities to continue to be up 10% to 15% year-over-year for the remainder of this fiscal year. Past that, it's hard to have perfect visibility on timing of openings and closings.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: But just to clarify, we are approaching this up-cycle in a totally different manner than we have in my 30 years with this Company, and that is, we are adhering very closely to our return of initial investment on any land deal that we will get our capital back, our original investment back within 24 months. Some slight exceptions, but our goal is to maintain that hard and fast rule.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: And we're not having a hard time finding deals that meet those criteria today.
Joel Locker - FBN Securities: And then the Southwest; that was down 9% year-over-year on orders, was that a function of just community count declining?
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: Yeah, in the Southwest, I think we mentioned on last quarter's call, with the vast improvement in the Phoenix market last year, our lot supply is a little lower than we would like, so we're working to build that back up, so our sales are reflecting that but we're also seeing very strong pricing in that region as we rebuild our inventory.
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: And that's really in terms of markets at Arizona and New Mexico for us.
Operator: Jack Micenko, SIG.
Jack Micenko - SIG.: Stacey, going back to the mortgage question, I know you talked about timing and those closings rolling – the revenue recognition in the mortgage. Can you talk about sequential trends in the gain on sale margins in mortgage and where you think those margins maybe go in the next two quarters or so?
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: We've been in a very robust gain on sale environment. The demand side for the mortgages that we're originating has increased. A large portion of our loans have been sold to one buyer for a long period of time. We're now seeing more buyers come into the market and that is helping with the pricing. We don't know exactly where the margins will go, but it might be a little aggressive to assume that they continue to stay exactly where they are, because this is above any historical margins we've ever ran in terms of gain on sale.
Jack Micenko - SIG.: Would you then see a big decline quarter-to-quarter?
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: No.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Right now, if you were investing in mortgages I can't imagine a better time with the FICO scores, the underwriting guidelines and with low interest rates, where they are today, very few prepayment, early prepayments, so if you're an investor in mortgages, it's a great time to be in the business.
Jack Micenko - SIG.: Don, you had talked about continuing to say and reiterate that you're not changing your standards on the land purchase side. We've heard some competitors talk about maybe moving in some inflation into their underwriting, I guess, the mix of almost half of your land activity this quarter was finished. Is that a sustainable percentage and, I mean, going back to the '03, '04 timeframe, I mean, is that a consistent mix, finished versus raw into sort of more building demand scenarios?
Mike Murray - SVP: I think that is a more normalized balance for us; about half developed, half – we internally develop half, we might buy finished from someone else. Over the past few years, it had swung more to us buying finished lots as they were available through distressed and other situations. As we're getting back to more normalized times, we're developing more of our own lots. But it's not swinging the pendulum past what we believe to be a historical balance.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: I think that's reflective of our geographic mix. We have a very strong presence in Texas where there are third-party developers, where there are finished lot opportunities, and really kind of throughout the South, there is a lot more opportunities there. So, we typically have seen a substantial amount of finished lot purchases in those markets.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: I'm telling you, and with our volume in each one of our markets, we're assisting third-party developers in terms of them obtaining their loans from banks because simply of the fact that; one, we have a strong balance sheet; and secondly, we're strong performer, we start a number of specs in each one of our communities. So, there are a lot of third-party developers who are seeking loans that look at Horton as a great catalyst to them securing their loan from a bank.
Operator: Stephen Kim, Barclays.
Stephen Kim - Barclays Capital: Wanted to ask you a question about M&A. Bill, in the 1990s cycle you all were really among the most successful M&A story in the industry. And recently, we've seen a little bit of activity from some of your peers on the M&A side getting into some markets here or there. And I guess I was curious whether or not you felt that it was reasonable to think that D.R. Horton would be able to have M&A be a meaningful part of your growth opportunities over the next, let's say, two to three years?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Well, clearly and I'll speak for him because he is sitting to my left, but (Mike Murray) is moved up to 38, he was our Controller and he was promoted to Senior Vice President, and he's in charge of our acquisitions for us. Clearly, if you recall, what was it four months ago, five months ago, we closed on Breland which was a builder in Mobile and Gulfport, Mississippi area as well as Huntsville, Alabama. So he's working deals, we're working deals and it's our goal to be a participant in the M&A game just as we were in the past up cycle.
Stephen Kim - Barclays Capital: Maybe just as a follow-up to that, can you give us a sense for what may be different about the way you're pursuing those deals either in terms of the kinds of constraints you'll put from your end or in terms of what embedded expectations are on the part of the focus on the other side of the table, relative to what you saw in the last cycle. You've indicated a lot of changes in the operations of your business; you just said you're doing things very differently in many ways in this up cycle operationally. Are there other differences on the M&A side as you look at things that are also relevant?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Before (Mike) gets into the facts or all the other (indiscernible), let me just say that our acquisition gain, one of the things is our preeminent plan has always been that we are looking for people who will fit within our Company and make sure that they blend well with us, and if you look at the people that we inherited from the Breland acquisition, there wasn't much Hortonization that was necessary, they fit within our organization very well and are performing very well. So, that's our first plan. Our second plan is to make sure that they fill a whole where we currently need some help, and so I'll let (Mike) go on with the rest of it.
Mike Murray - SVP: And looking at our footprint, perhaps today versus where it was when we went through the last round of M&A that concluded in – really in '02, our footprint is much more robust today, and so there's less geographies that we'd be looking to fill in. It doesn't mean there's not places that we're existing today that might be attractive opportunities for us. Situations sometimes seller motivated, they may have survived the last cycle very well, but they're looking for a way to take some of their capital out of play and a different lifestyle perhaps from where they are today, but as Dom said, it's the people part that got to be the first fit and we are going to be focused on what we believe to be top drawer people and really good long-term fits for us. We can grow our lot and land positions in our markets, but to add some key talent and key teams and selectively new markets, there's opportunities.
Operator: Alex Barron, Housing Research Center.
Alex Barron - Housing Research Center: I, as you know, I've been following you guys for a long time and I am kind of surprised by your conservatism on your guidance, because it seems to me that everything's going on all cylinders and I'm just trying to understand if that's all that is behind your SG&A, your backlog conversion and your gross margin guidance.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Are you saying that our gross margin guidance is light and our SG&A decreases our light?
Alex Barron - Housing Research Center: Well, it seems to me that the – I mean, based on what you have in backlog going for you, and I know that you're not going to grow the SG&A (and coming) you've always watched it, it would seem to me you're going to get way below 11% in the back half, but anyway…?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Let me clearly say that (it's) far below. Yeah, we talked clearly, Alex, about the fact that we still see gross margin expansion opportunities in the quarters ahead, especially in our next few quarters, and as obviously we get more of our closings in the second half of the year than the first half of the year, we see some declines in our SG&A as a percentage of revenue moving forward, and that clearly, I think our SG&A percentage in the second half of the year will clearly be under 11% and may approach 10% for the third and fourth quarter. But on an average for the year, based upon where we are today, it's not going to be – it's probably going to be closer to 11% and it's going to be closer to 10%. But it could be somewhere in between there.
Stacey H. Dwyer - EVP and Treasurer: Yeah, and on backlog conversion, 70% compared to what we would have historically done in our third quarter; it's probably about 10% higher. We have seen our spec percentage come down a little bit as our percentage of inventory, so that's one of the things we're weighing, but quite honestly, we haven't been the perfect predictors of what our backlog conversion will be.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: We've known that it would start reverting back to historical norms, but predicting how quickly and how much has been a little difficult, but we have seen a slower backlog conversion this year than last year. We expect that to continue to revert. That's what's in the guidance. Could we do better than 70%? Sure. But historically, I'd say that we could do a little worse than that too.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: And please remember what I said in my prepared remarks. The second half of the year will be substantially better than the first half of the year for us.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: Absolutely.
Alex Barron - Housing Research Center: So, I guess that leads me to ask, why – I know you gave historical averages of the 20% gross margin and the 10% SG&A, but why would SG&A stay at 10%? Why couldn't it go below that and in the future years, since you guys are obviously getting a lot of scale advantages and as you pointed out, you don't need to hire that many incremental people to manage the growth in the units?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: With all due respect Alex, we're not focused on where our SG&A is going to be so much in year in '14 and '15 as where we are in the next two quarters. So we're just focusing right now on delivering what we can very effectively deliver in the third and fourth quarters, and obviously, you know this organization, you know Don Horton very well, if we get to 10%, Horton will want 9% and we'll be working on trying to get to 9%, but let's get the 10% first before you try to get us committed to where we're going to be in '14 and '15.
Alex Barron - Housing Research Center: If I could just ask on your land strategy, you know, I go out and visit a lot of communities around the country and it seems to me like you guys are the only ones kind of moving out to a lot of the first-time – where the first-time buyers are and your peers seems to be hesitating. Are you finding that opportunities and returns and the cost of land there are more attractive than fighting for the A locations?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Well, actually as we come through, as I said earlier in the conference call, Bill, Stacey and I see every deal that comes through the Company and one of us approves it and I hear and see every deal. I would say to you that we are clearly still seeing a number of great opportunities in A locations and most of the deals we're approving right now are A locations based upon our gross margin hurdles as well as our return of initial capital. So, I don't believe we're seeing – I know one thing, we're not doing any C deals. So, clearly we're augmenting our A deals. So, the majority of our deals are As with some B deals but we've got a high level of A deals coming into the corporation right now.
Mike Murray - SVP: If there's strong buyer demand in a submarket at margins that meet our hurdles, that's an A deal for us.
Operator: Megan McGrath, MKM Partners.
Megan McGrath - MKM Partners: Just wanted to ask a little bit about pricing and affordability. We've got pricing going up a couple of percentage points but, at least according to the data this morning, we've got real incomes down about 5%. So, obviously, all of that mortgage rates here, how much wiggle room do you think that you still have on the pricing especially with your first time buyer, what are you hearing from your sales folks in terms of how much they can push it in terms of affordability here?
Mike Murray - SVP: Well as we look across the country, frankly, we're selling more and more larger plans as our sales price indicates and our square footage indicates and frankly on a number of our markets, we're leading the smallest two plans simply because of the fact that we have much better margins and the third largest small plan and going up the scale, so, I don't see any issues with that currently and I know that, that's an issue, because obviously with the increased taxes that everyone's having to pay this year, there is less disposable income, but we still have people largely coming into our models especially in the first-time home buyer market with the affordability rates where they are today, even though they may not be as great as they once were, but they're still very good, they're still trying to buy all the house they possibly can, and that's something we always have to watch, always watch the affordability today, it's still very good and then especially with where mortgage standards are today for those buyers that are able to qualify for a mortgage, they have very good credit quality, so they're typically able, probably, to afford a little bit more house than buyers several years ago when credit standards were a little different.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: When we're dropping our one or two smallest plans on a number of our communities, there's good demand out there. So, to the extent that we're dropping those, to the extent that we had to come back and add those because of less disposable income or qualifying problems, we can easily do that.
Megan McGrath - MKM Partners: Then just to follow-up on your comment around financing, we'd actually heard in a couple of instances that now the prices are going up that appraisers are falling behind a little bit and having a hard time catching up. Has there been any pushback for you in the quarter in terms of appraisers catching up with your price increases?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Actually, we work very closely to the extent that we can with our appraisers and we try to help them by having a focal person in each division deliver the appraisal packet and to the extent that they can – using of our help, we're trying to help them, but clearly, I think the appraisers are doing a good job in most of our markets, there are a handful of markets where we feel like that the appraisers are not giving the value that we should be getting for our homes, but we're working through that.
Operator: Buck Horne, Raymond James.
Buck Horne - Raymond James: Quick one here. Can you quantify any external commissions that were in the gross margin line and I guess, also are there any markets where you're actively trying to slow absorption given the land constraints out there and how do you balance the equation between price and pace right now?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: I'll take the second half of that. We're not trying to slow our sales in any particular market by a lack of lot supply. If we are doing anything and our sales are slowing in a particular area it's because we're very proactive on our price increases and we're trying to take price increases wherever we can and as actively as we can, but not any restriction on our sales relative to land and lot supply.
Bill W. Wheat - EVP and CFO: And commissions, over the long-term are typically around 3% of revenue for us and this quarter was in line with that long-term range.
Buck Horne - Raymond James: One just last one in the call here, but can you talk a little bit about the margin differential between internally developed communities versus communities you buy from third parties? What's the margin differential between those typically? On the finished lots you do buy today, what's the implied margin relative to your current 20%?
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: It's really a risk assessment and basically if we're buying lots, all-cash from a third-party developer, or if we have bought the land and are developing the lots, we have a higher gross margin underwriting hurdle than our standard on a rolling option basis. That could be anywhere from 200 basis points to 300 basis points to 400 basis points differential because we believe that as we have to cash something out or in terms of finished lots or if we develop the subdivision ourselves, we should be paying ourselves a risk-adjusted return, and if we're not, then we're making a mistake. So that's where we focus and sometimes its 500 basis points, but I'd say, it's typically somewhere between 300 basis points and 400 basis points if we have to cash something out.
Operator: Thank you. We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any further or closing comments.
Donald J. Tomnitz - VC, President and CEO: Thank you, and thank our employees for a wonderful quarter. We've come through a tough five years in the Company. We've rebuilt the Company from the ground up. Our employees have done a phenomenal job out there helping us get to where we are. Without a doubt, we're clearly the leader in the industry, and with where we are today and where we are positioned, over the course of the next two years, we should clearly be the leader in the industry both on units, revenues, profit, gross margins, SG&A. We have absolutely had a phenomenal quarter, but there is more great things to come at this Company and I appreciate it and D.R. and I thank each and one of our employees. Bye-bye.
Operator: Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.


text:
Hearts for transplant come from deceased donors. There is an urgent need for organ donation in the United States, where almost 90,000 people are waiting for lifesaving organ transplants.
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The country's chief agency for space research is focused on creating future scientists -- male and female. "We think it's a problem, and we do what we can to ensure diversity," says Nahid Khazenie, program manager for college and precollege science education at NASA in Washington, D.C. "Obviously, women get the short end quite often. We highlight women scientists at NASA to offer girls role models."
Khazenie says NASA invests heavily in reaching out to students, conducting more than 300 programs across the country every year, spending $120 million on grants and educational programs.
It funds its own Education and Equal Opportunity division, along with the National Space Grant College & Fellowship Program, which provides tuition assistance to students studying math, science, technology and engineering. That program has awarded more than 12,000 scholarships and fellowships in 11 years -- 43% of them to women. Khazenie also notes that 53% of NASA's summer high school research program participants are girls. Add to this NASA's weekly online showcase of outstanding NASA women on its Web site, www.nasa.gov.
"I have a hard time finding the skilled resources in the IT market," says Kim Spencer, manager of Information Technology Services at Texas Instruments. "Diversity is welcome and needed so we can understand that there are different ways to solve a problem. We all bring something different to the table."
Texas Instruments is a sponsor of Women in Technology International (WITI), a professional association of women working in technology. The company also is active in local school systems, sending its female technologists into the schools to show off technology and its uses. "My daughter is an eighth grader, and she has started trying harder in math because she's interested in this now," Spencer says. "What will you use this geometry for? Now she has an answer."
With its own Women in Technology initiative, IBM is pushing hard to diversify its work force. "We have a societal stereotype that steers women away from IT," says Linda Scherr, program director for IBM's Women in Technology department. "If we can fix that, we can fix the shortage problem. I 'm not talking about an H-1B visa, short-term plan. I 'm talking about fixing this.
Scherr's 3-year-old initiative supports networks of technical women in an effort to negate any feelings of isolation. It also aims at providing female role models with a companywide platform. IBM sponsored the Conference for Technical Women last year, bringing 500 female technical leaders from IBM together from 29 different countries. IBM also is a strategic sponsor of MentorNet, a national electronic mentoring initiative connecting women who are studying engineering and related fields with women already in the industry.
This story, "Some companies get the message" was originally published by Network World.


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Let us know when your receive great advice so we can thank our lawyers and point others with similar questions in the right direction.Got it!
I was wondering if I would be eligible to use a 1244 on an investment I made in a private company 5 years ago. The company, a C corporation has provided little info and no financials. I believe the stock is totally worthless and would like to use it to offset my income. The last update was that the company had no Revenues and changed its business model. I would be grateful for any advice on how to handle this
IRC § 1244 offers qualifying shareholders an important tax advantage when a small corporation suffers losses or goes out of business.
Normally, a shareholder's loss from the sale or exchange of their stock is considered a capital loss and must be used to offset the amount of any capital gains the shareholder may have had during the year. If the shareholder had insufficient capital gains to offset the loss, the loss could then be used to offset up to $3,000 of the shareholder's ordinary income incurred during the year.
However, certain stock held by shareholders of eligible small corporations is treated differently for federal income tax purposes under IRC § 1244. A small corporation shareholder's loss from the sale or exchange of IRC § 1244 stock can be used to offset their ordinary income from other sources—up to $50,000 for an individual and $100,000 for a married couple filing a joint return.
In order for a corporation and its shareholders to be eligible for IRC § 1244 stock treatment, the following tests must be met: (1) the amount of money and/or property the corporation received for stock, a contribution to capital, and paid-in capital did not exceed $1,000,000 at the time of the issuance; (2) the shareholder purchased the stock from the corporation as an original issue and is an individual or partnership; (3) the stock is either common stock or preferred stock; (4) the stock was paid for with money or property, not services or other stock or securities; and (5) the corporation derived over 50% of its total gross receipts from sources other than rents, royalties, dividends, interest, annuities, or proceeds from sales or exchanges of securities either for the 5 years prior to the year in which the loss occurred or since the corporation's inception, if it has not been in existence for 5 years.
The last test--that the corporation derived over 50% of its total gross receipts from sources other than rents, royalties, dividends, interest, annuities, or proceeds from sales or exchanges of securities--may be difficult to establish in your case since you do not have access to financials.
However, you may be able to force the private corporation to allow you to inspect the annual financials. According to Tatko v. Tatko Bros. Slate Co. Inc., a stockholder is entitled to inspect the books and records of a corporation for the purpose of determining the value of his stock. See Tatko v. Tatko Bros. Slate Co. Inc., 569 N.Y.S.2d 783 (3rd Dep't 1991). However, the stockholders right to inspect for the purpose of determining the value of his stock is limited to good faith requests. For instance, where a shareholders' agreement already provides another method of valuation, the request would be considered to be in bad faith and the board would not be required to allow the shareholder to access the financials. See People ex rel. Giles v. Klauder-Weldon Dyeing Mach. Co., 167 N.Y.S. 429 (3rd Dep't 1917).
I would suggest you hire an experienced, local corporate tax attorney to acquire the necessary documents and to analyze your eligibility for IRC 1244 loss treatment.Ask a similar question
Thank you for your detailed answer. The company has provided no information whatsoever to investors the last five years. i will likely have to do the information request you recommended. An independent audit would be preferable but I dont know how that is done
Thank you Dana. To the author, Dana is a NY corporate tax lawyer who is very well-respected on these boards. He would probably be someone great with which to arrange a consultation.
There's not much to add, after Matthew's answer. But all that being outlined for you, understand this: Identifying treatment for disposition of Sec. 1244 stock is indeed a "fact-based" analysis. By the language of the code, this was never meant to be a "do-it-yourself" analysis. So, please, find a local transactional tax attorney to review your facts. This is really not the forum to be advised on potential Sec 1244 application.
Attorney J Anton Collins is a featured Criminal Tax Defense Attorney on Avvo. You may contact Attorney Collins directly at firstname.lastname@example.com, or 866-340-5055, for more specific answers. This forum is merely for open, public discussion. Discussions in this open, online forum are not intended to create an attorney-client relationship. IRS CIRCULAR 230 DISCLOSURE NOTICE: IRS Circular 230 regulates written communications about federal tax matters between tax advisors and their clients. To the extent the preceding correspondence and/or any attachment is a written tax advice communication, it is not a full "covered opinion". Accordingly, this advice is not intended and cannot be used for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed by the IRS regarding the transaction or matters discussed herein. Each taxpayer should seek advice from an independent tax advisor with respect to any Federal tax issues, transactions or matters addressed, discussed or referenced herein based upon his, her or its particular circumstances.Ask a similar question
Your biggest issue would be proving things such as your contribution was part of the first $1 million. This can be hard to prove with little information. You need to speak with a business attorney that can help you obtain the needed information if you plan to do this.
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Blow By on a fresh rebuild. Possible ?? PLEASE HELP. Pics inside
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Blow By on a fresh rebuild. Possible ?? PLEASE HELP. Pics inside
A week ago or so I posted a thread in regards to my car smoking a little bit. I thought It might have been running to rich so I adjusted the fuel mixture screws with no success. Well yesterday I took her out for a drive and I noticed there was oil coming from the passenger exhaust pipe. My heart sank !.....First thing that came to mind was a blown piston rings... I looked under the hood and noticed there was black residue coming out of the #2 cylinder. I had actually noticed this 2 weeks ago but figured it might be normal b/c the header bolt was a bit loose on the # 2 exhaust manifold...
So I spent half the night searching the forum and reading up on other articles. Seems like there are other possibilities than just blown piston rings. For example, one member stated that he experienced the same problem just after replacing his valve covers for some chrome Holley's. He didn't replace the PCV valve and he was experiencing "blow by". Another member had bad valve seals.
So here I am wondering what the worst case scenario is.....
SBC 350 rebuilt winter of 06'
Installed July 08'
Running synthetic oil
When I installed the motor it never showed any signs of smoking. In fact, I would drive the car up and down my alley with open headers and it never smoked....It started smoking only after I had the full exhaust done (3 weeks ago) and I installed some Edelbrock Elite valve covers. I didn't replace the PCV valve. During this time I also attached the tranny vacuum line and tinkered with the timing.
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Institute for Integrating Statistics in Decision Sciences
The purpose of the Institute for Integrating Statistics in Decision Sciences (I²SDS) is to foster the integration of modern statistical methodologies into the decision sciences. The Institute's research emphasis is on Bayesian thinking and associated computing, probability elicitation, utility assessment and approaches for the maximization of expected utility for decision making.
Under the leadership of the Department of Decision Sciences of the School of Business, I²SDS is an academic collaborative partnership with the Departments of Statistics of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences and the Engineering Management and Systems Engineering of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. The institute intends to explore collaboration with the faculty from the School of Medicine and the Law School.
Contact Information
The Institute for Integrating Statistics in Decision Sciences
School of Business
Funger Hall, Suite 415
2201 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052
Phone: 202-994-6445
Fax: 202-994-2736
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Meeting Presentation
Comment Sheet (comments due on June 16th)
Meeting Presentation
Main Street Public Meeting Brochure
Main Street Complete Streets
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Main Street Cross Sections 6th to 17th
Main Street Cross Sections 18th to University
The following links are provided for your review:
Environmental Assessment
Public Hearing Flier
Notice of Public Hearing and EA Availability
Highway 58 Corridor Improvement Study Video Presentation
IA 58 Project Update No. 2 on 5-6-14
Public Meeting No. 2 Presentation
Public Meeting No. 2 Display Boards
IA 58 Project Update No. 1 on 10-17-13
Highway 58 Corridor Improvement Study on 10-15-13
4-22-14 Open House Presentation Boards
Meeting Handout
W. 1st Street Alternative 1 - 4 lane roadway
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W. 1st Street Alternative 3a - 5 lane roadway (67' wide)
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Purpose and Need Statement
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Need Bees Removed?
Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
Hear the buzz on Burt's Bees
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Hear the buzz on Burt's Bees
October 16, 2004, 07:40:39 PM »
Hear the buzz on Burt's Bees
By Christine Parrish
BELFAST (Oct 15, 2004): Burt's Bees, a natural cosmetics line, was started in 1987 when a beekeeper named Burt asked his girlfriend Roxy if she wanted the three years' worth of beeswax stored in his shed.
Roxanne Quimby, founder of Burt's Bees, told the story of the development of the company at the Maine Businesses for Social Responsibility fall conference at the UMaine Hutchinson Center.
Burt's Bees, which had $50 million in sales in 2003, started out in an abandoned schoolhouse in Guilford. Quimby and Burt made beeswax candles and tree ornaments and drove to craft fairs around the state to sell them.
Roxanne Quimby, the founder of Burt's Bees. (Photo by Jay Davis)
Quimby, who moved to Maine as a single mother intent on simplifying her life, was attracted to Burt's independence and asked if she could help in beekeeping.
"He was a hermit who lived in a 14-by-14-foot cabin with no electricity, no running water and a dog," said Quimby, who sold an 80 percent share of the $50 million business to a private equity firm in 2003. "Burt's still there. Nothing has changed for him but his net worth and that kind of happened to him. He wasn't really looking for it."
That first year the sales of the beeswax candle encouraged Quimby to experiment with new products. A succession of folksy innovations followed, including: Boot Food, a boot polish made of bear fat and beeswax; and Burt's Bones, an all-natural dog bone. They made their way into the product line during the early years. A lot of products came; and when they didn't sell, a lot of products went.
"We were pretty much living off rutabagas and firewood in those days," said Quimby. "We were barely in the market economy at all and we didn't understand it. If a product didn't sell, we dropped it and tried something else, because selling and not selling was the difference between having the gas to get home."
Since Quimby was used to working hard and living on little, overhead was minimal and economic necessity drove her to experiment and prioritize.
"I never would have predicted in 1987 that the company would be what it is today," said Quimby. "I couldn't have predicted the product line at all. I mean, for a while we were making dog bones and cat food. The dog bones didn't sell, but at least the dogs liked them. We ate them when we couldn't sell them. But the cats wouldn't even eat the cat food, and neither would we."
The partners were still making all the products in the early 1990s when they got a last-minute invitation to have a display booth at the Maine contingent of the New York Gift Show, a huge wholesale event attended by buyers from all over the country. Quimby came back to Guilford with a sheaf of wholesale orders and realized she could no longer make all the beeswax products herself.
Over the next few years she hired women with limited work opportunities in the Guilford area, a workforce she describes as underutilized and overlooked. Needing a bookkeeper, she called up the local high school and hired Paul Daigle, a 14-year-old student on the math team, to do bookkeeping and payroll.
Burt the beekeeper sports vacation attire. (Image courtesy of Burt's Bees)
By 1993, the company had so many requests for orders that it had to grow to remain competitive.
"We had 40 employees and we were still making everything by hand," said Quimby. "It was rudimentary and enchanting, sort of like Santa's workshop, but it was out of control. I needed more expertise than I could get in Guilford. I put ads in the Boston Globe looking for a bookkeeper, but no one was willing to live in a place where it was an hour's drive to a movie theater."
Quimby realized she would need to relocate the business in order to grow. She approached the Maine Department of Commerce several times to see if it could help her stay in the state. Department officials didn't return her phone calls but other states sought her out. In 1994, she relocated the business to Raleigh, N.C.
"I gave Maine the chance to keep me and they blew it," she said, noting that after the story about the company's upcoming move to North Carolina was published in Forbes magazine, the state contacted her and tried to get her to stay. By that time, employees were loading the trucks. "The cost of doing business in Maine is enormous. It's not the cost of labor. That's higher in North Carolina."
Quimby said she pays less workers' compensation and unemployment insurance for 300 employees in North Carolina than she did for 40 in Maine. Transportation costs are also lower.
After an initial dip in sales after the move, the company secured its niche in the natural cosmetics market by a variety of methods, including introducing a make-up line. The lip balm is the only product still selling from those early days.
The most successful marketing methods, according to Quimby, are the "branding" of Burt and the logo of the beehive and the bees created by local artist Tony Kulik, who owns Engraven Images, an art gallery on High Street in Belfast.
"I met Roxanne at a craft show when she was still dipping candles and she asked me to draw up a label," said Kulik, who was commissioned by Burt's Bees for about 40 prints over the years. "They had a library of them, so they could just pick one when they had a new product."
Quimby said, "We knew by then that we would have to create a personality like the Doughboy [for Pillsbury] because we have a short time to connect with the consumer and keep them." She realized the Burt's Bees image did not require the slick and polished beauty of Revlon but a weird, hippie beauty.
"Our hero was Burt," she said. "He's down-to-earth and independent. Sort of the antithesis of slick. We couldn't have made up a better story. He ended up having a cult hero appeal."
"He gives beauty advice, too," she said.
Quimby transitioned out of her role as the CEO of Burt's Bees on Sept. 10 of this year, but retains 20 percent ownership and is still involved in decision making. The goal of the company is to make Burt's Bees a national consumer brand on the level of Neutrogena, which Johnson & Johnson bought last year for $900 million.
Quimby, who wears no make-up and whose healthy head of hair is naturally streaked with silver, is ready to use her business skills in a way she considers nobler. A self-described radical environmentalist, she is currently championing the proposal for a North Woods National Park in Northern Maine.
As for creating a business-friendly environment in Maine, Quimby said the state needs an overhaul.
"Lurch my good man,…what did you mean when you said just now that 'You've got better things to do than run my petty little errands'…….?"
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Denver directed 11 episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard.
Even with cancer, he didn't let it stop him from doing what he loved doing, and it didn't stop him from making the first Dukes of Hazzard Reunion movie.
Denver was given his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on December 11, 1997.
He was diagnosed with cancer in 1996.
He got his first acting job as Carl in Devil Ship at the age of 27.
Denver also worked as a waiter and a hearing-aid salesman.
Denver moved to L.A. in 1940 when he briefly worked at NBC.
Some of Denver's hobbies were fishing, collecting clocks, and reading Mark Twain and Jack London books.
Denver's favorite food was Italian.
Denver's favorite color was red.
He weighed about 195 pounds.
He passed away at Burbank's Providence St. Joseph Medical Center.
His middle name was "Dell", the name of his parents' favorite city.
Pyle enlisted during World War II in the US Navy, in 1943 he was wounded in the battle and received a medical discharge.
He is the nephew of Ernie Pyle.
He is the brother of Willis Pyle, an animator.
He was married to Tippy Pyle (they were married till his death).
He married and divorced Marilee Pyle they had two sons.
He is 6'1" tall.


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Diane Chamberlain: "Pretending to Dance"
Author Diane Chamberlain, who divides her time between Raleigh and Topsail Island, forwarded an advance copy of her 24th novel, "Pretending to Dance," due out in October from St. Martin's. Like many of Chamberlain's tales — especially her 2014 who-done-what "The Silent Sister" — this one is a stew of secrets and lies. In "Pretending to Dance," 38-year-old Molly and Aidan are being interviewed by a social worker as a first step toward adopting a baby. Molly, the narrator, is… Read More »


text:
Listing information
- Beds: 3
- Stories: 0
- Foreclosure: No
- Lot Area: 0.66
- County: Mason
- Subdivision: O55 - Custer Branch Eden Logan
- Style: Single Family
- Baths: 2 (Full: 2 3/4: 0 1/2: 0 Other: 0)
- Parking Type Description: Detached 2 cars
- Total Square Footage: 1,608 ($52.86 per sq. foot)
- Lot Size: 177x177x149x175
- High School: Mason County Eastern
- Year Built: 1999
- Status: Active
- New Construction: No
- Above Ground Sq. Feet: 1,608
- Estimated Annual Taxes: $810
- School District: Mason Cnty Eastern
Additional Items Ceiling Fans, Garage Door Opener, LP Tank Owned, Water Softener/Rented
Air Conditioning Central
Appliances Dishwasher, Dryer, Range, Refrigerator, Washer
Assoc. Amenities Beach Area, Club House, Detached Unit, Other, Pets Allowed
Assoc. Fee Incl. Other, Snow Removal, Trash
Association Info.: Assoc. Fee Payable Annually
Basement No
Design Ranch
Driveway Paved
Exterior Features Porch(es)
Exterior Material Vinyl
Fireplace Family, No, Wood
Garage Type 2, Detached
Garage: Garage Yes
Heat Source Propane, Wood
Heat Type Forced Air, Wood/Pellet Furnace
Landscape Ground Cover, Shrubs/Hedges
Lot Description Wooded
Manufactured Details Multi Section, Titled
Manufactured: Manufactured Y/N Yes
Mineral Rights Unknown
Other Association Info.: Assoc. Buy in Fee - 144, Main Rooms: Main Bedrooms - 3, Main Rooms: Main Full Baths - 2, Main Rooms: Main Level SQFT - 1608.00, Road Frontage - 177.00, Waterfront Options: Water Frontage - 1.00
Outbuildings Storage Shed
Property Sub-Type Single Family Residence
Roofing Metal
Sale Conditions None
Street Type Private, Unpaved
Substructure Crawl Space
Terms Available Cash/Conventional
Util Avail at Street Electric
Utilities / Sewer Septic System
Utilities Attached Telephone Line
Water Fea. Amenities Assoc Access
Water Heater Propane
Water Type Pond, Well
Waterfront Options: Body of Water Pond
Waterfront Options: Water Access Y/N Yes
Waterfront Options: Waterfront Y/N No
Windows Insulated
Bedroom 2 M 12x10
Bedroom 3 M 12x9
Family Room M 20x16
Kitchen M 13x10
Laundry Room M 14x5
Living Room M 19x13
Master Bathroom M 11x8
Master Bedroom M 13x13
Dining Area 11x12
Listing Courtesy of Vince Barnett of Lighthouse Realty-Ludington


text:
dream hampton—social justice organizer, writer, and award-winning filmmaker—just unloaded an enlightening, reality-checking series of tweets. Speaking on the current difficulties surrounding protests, hampton pointed to one of the most damaging wars being waged against black resistance: a financial stronghold. "Protest is literally punished with tariffs," hampton tweeted.
The Decoded contributor also spoke openly about Jay Z's numerous private contributions to the resistance, indirectly confronting the constant flurry of detractors who repeatedly hurl claims of hypocrisy at Jay and Beyoncé surrounding their perceived silence on the issues surrounding Ferguson, Baltimore, and protests in general. In short, the Carters have — according to dream hampton — privately donated large amounts of money to ease the burden of posting bail for protestors, as well as other equally impactful donations that are simply "too much to list."
These tweets will likely be deleted, so we've compiled some screenshots below.


text:
And when the dewdrops fall," said the second, "I think they are the tears of all who are like me, forsaken.
And she smiled, though the tears shone like dewdrops on her lashes.
They seemed to be a multitude of dewdrops shaken from the depths of some big rose, and dropped into the midst of a rainbow.
She shook her head proudly, as if tears were to be dispersed like dewdrops.
The day was still young and the grass and bushes were covered with dewdrops.
He found it in dewdrops, in the spray of waterfalls, in drops shaken from the oar in rowing.
The tiny feet disturb not the dewdrops, as on the rose of Sharrion's breast they lie.
How sweetly she thanked me for the rose I cut for her without spilling one of the dewdrops.
We're two twin dewdrops, you and I; you can be the dewdrops, and I'll be the twin.
Twas only a little thing, yet she thanked me as if the dewdrops were diamonds.