Legacy Housing Corporation Q1 2026 Earnings Call - Workforce Housing Orders Drive Q2-Q4 Outlook

Conference Operator, Moderator: Welcome to the Legacy Housing Corporation First Quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker’s presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board. Please go ahead.

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: Good morning. This is Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman. I’m here with Jon Langbert, our Chief Financial Officer. Thanks for joining our first quarter 2026 conference call. Jon will now read the Safe Harbor Disclosure before we get started.

Jon Langbert, Chief Financial Officer, Legacy Housing Corporation: Before we begin, I’m reminding our listeners that management’s prepared remarks today will contain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties, and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. The company claims the protection of the Safe Harbor for forward-looking statements that is contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from management’s current expectations. We refer you to a more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties in the company’s quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission and in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K. Any projections as to the company’s future performance represent management’s estimates as of today’s call. Legacy Housing assumes no obligation to update these projections in the future unless otherwise required by applicable law.

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: Thanks, Jon. I’ll turn the call over to Jon or back to Jon now to walk you through the quarter’s results, and then I’ll come back with some thoughts on the business and a few corporate updates. After that, we’ll open the call up to questions and answers. Jon?

Jon Langbert, Chief Financial Officer, Legacy Housing Corporation: Thanks, Kurt. Let’s get to the numbers. Total net revenue for the quarter was $34.4 million, down 3.7% from $35.7 million a year ago. Despite the modest top-line decline, net income grew to $10.9 million from $10.3 million, and diluted EPS came in at $0.46, up from $0.41 in Q1 of 2025. Revenue was a touch softer, but the bottom line was stronger, and I’ll walk through how we got there. Product sales were $21.6 billion, down 11.3%. We shipped 312 units in the quarter versus 350 a year ago, with average revenue per unit essentially flat at roughly $69,100. The story underneath the headline number is really a mixed story.

Inventory finance sales were down about $7.6 million or 68% as our dealers continued to work through existing inventory on their lots. That decline was largely offset by strength across our other channels. Retail store sales nearly doubled, up 81% to $6.1 million. Direct sales were up 80% to $2.7 million, and commercial sales to mobile home parks grew 12% to $7.6 million. The shift toward retail and direct selling reflects the strategy we’ve been executing, getting closer to the end consumer and expanding our company-owned distribution. Loan portfolio interest income was $11.3 million, up 6.2%, with essentially all of that growth coming from our consumer book. The consumer portfolio ended the quarter at $204.8 million, up modestly from year-end.

Mobile home park notes finished at $199.5 million, and dealer inventory finance receivables at $26.5 million. On the expense side, cost of product sales was down 13.1%, broadly in line with lower volumes, and SG&A came in at $5.8 million, down 8.3%. The SG&A decline reflects lower payroll, health benefit, and legal costs, partially offset by a higher loan loss provision and modestly higher property taxes. The net result is that even with revenue down a touch, we delivered net income growth of about 6% and EPS growth of around 12%, a function of slightly stronger gross margins, lower SG&A, and a lower effective tax rate.

On taxes, our effective rate for the quarter was 16.1% versus 19.3% a year ago and the 21% statutory rate. The benefit reflects two items. First, the Federal Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit, known as Section 45L, which provides a per-home tax credit for manufacturers who build homes meeting specified energy efficiency standards and which we’ve qualified for on a substantial portion of our production. Second, a discount on transferable tax credits we purchased during the quarter. As a reminder, the Section 45L credit terminates on June 30th of this year under last year’s tax legislation. We expect our effective rate to move closer to the statutory rate after that. The balance sheet remains in excellent shape.

We ended the quarter with $14.1 million in cash, up from $8.5 million at year-end on $7 million of operating cash flow. Inventories rose to $50.4 million from $39.9 million at year-end, primarily in finished goods. Kurt will speak more about the inventory build and the data center project driving it in a moment. Our $50 million Prosperity Bank revolver had less than $1 million drawn at quarter end, leaving roughly $49 million of available capacity, and we’re in compliance with all our financial covenants. Total stockholders’ equity finished the quarter at $539 million, up from $528.6 million at year-end.

We repurchased about 31,000 shares for roughly $600,000 during the quarter under our new $10 million authorization that the board approved in February, leaving approximately $9.4 million available for future repurchases through February of 2029. The credit quality across our loan portfolios remains solid. At quarter end, more than 97% of both our consumer loans and our mobile home park notes were less than 30 days past due. We did increase loan loss reserves modestly in the quarter, reflecting continued portfolio growth and a slightly more conservative posture given the broader economic backdrop. With that, I’ll turn it back to Curtis.

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: Thanks, Jon. Let me hit a few business topics, like the operating environment, some specific business updates, and a couple items that warrant a closer look from this quarter. The Q1 environment was a continuation of what I’ve spoken for in the past. Inflation picked up a little bit during the quarter, and the Fed is now holding its benchmark rates steady. 30-year mortgage rates are staying above 6%. Sustained higher borrowing costs continue to weigh on our consumer affordability, which affects our end consumers and particularly affects our park customers. They’re just trying to make a return on their investment, and higher interest rates are making it more difficult to do so. Tariffs became a meaningful theme during this quarter, and they continue to affect our cost structure.

The Supreme Court ruled in February that the emergency tariffs imposed in 2025 were not authorized, and U.S. Customs has begun winding down those duties. We are in the process of asking for $683,000 refund based on that Supreme Court decision. Meanwhile, the U.S. Trade Representative kicked off new Section 301 investigations in March that could provide a different legal basis for tariffs going forward. Effective April sixth, right after our quarter end, additional 232 duties were imposed on things like aluminum, steel, copper, which does affect our cost structure. The bottom line is, combined effective tariff rates on most Chinese origin goods are still meaningful, and we’re still absorbing real input cost pressures.

On a few other specific items, on retail and dealer activity, the shift towards retail at our own company stores we’ve been talking about is really showing up this quarter, and I think will continue to improve. Our retail sales are up 81% year-over-year. Part of that increase came from buying AmeriCasa last year, which sells our homes, but it also sells three other brands at that location. Across our 14 company-owned retail locations, we call it Heritage Housing, our Tiny House Outlet, and AmeriCasa, direct access to end consumers continues to be a meaningful part of our strategy. On our finance division, the loan portfolios continue to perform very well. Consumer loan portfolio interest grew.

Credit quality is over 97% across all of our portfolios. We haven’t seen any deterioration that would require us to change our reserving posture beyond the modest increases that we’ve been making. On capital allocation, we restarted share repurchases this quarter under the new $10 million authorization. With our stock continuing to trade near book value, we view buybacks as a sensible use of our capital alongside reinvestment in the business. Let me talk a minute about the workforce housing orders that for the last two calls I’ve mentioned. During this quarter, we received non-refundable deposits of about $8 million from customers for large workforce housing orders. We started production on the orders in the first quarter. Had not made any deliveries from those orders in the first quarter.

Now that we’re in the second quarter, I expect 200-300 units to be delivered on those fairly high margin orders that we or deposits we have in place. We should recognize substantially all of these workforce housing orders that we have in the calendar year 2026. Another topic I’d like to spend a minute on is the AmeriCasa litigation. We filed a lawsuit last month, or in March, I guess it was. Our claim is related to misrepresentations and omissions made in that acquisition. We’re early in the litigation.

I’m not exactly sure where it’ll end up, but the litigation was necessary because the acquisition we made last year was not panning out as we expected, and I think it’s because of things that were either not disclosed or were erroneously disclosed during the due diligence period. The litigation is not really material to our consolidated financial position or our liquidity or even our operations. We’ll continue to evaluate the facts and circumstances regarding that acquisition, and I just want everybody to know that it isn’t going to be the savior to the company, but on the other hand, it’s not gonna be very deleterious either. Let’s see now. We have one other item that’s worth flagging.

In 2024, we came to an agreement with borrowers under which we received clear title to 2 mobile home communities and a new 48.6% on a short-term $48.6 million promissory note bearing 7.9% interest. This note matures in July. We’ve been in contact with the borrower, they’ve now made all required payments under that bridge loan, if you will. We are now talking to them about where now brown cow. We are talking about taking a partial payment and renewing it. We’re talking about what possible lending that we are willing to do on a going-forward basis. We still believe that there won’t be any negative effect from this note.

We are in the process of negotiating, and you never know how it might turn out. A couple other closing thoughts that are really short. You know, Q1 was a solid quarter, especially in light of the management transition that happened in the fourth quarter. Net income was up over 6%, and on a diluted earnings per share basis, it was up 12%. Helped somewhat because of our share repurchases and somewhat by the exit of executives that no longer have stock options. Our balance sheet is in great shape. $14 million of cash, essentially no debt, and I’m proud to say $539 million of stockholders’ equity and an undrawn revolver. People look at us and say, "My gosh, you have a clean balance sheet." We also are a one-entity company, no subsidiaries.

I think that is a very attractive place to be. The workforce housing orders are encouraging, especially here in Texas. The strength in our retail and direct sales reflects the strategy that we’ve been pursuing. Loan portfolios continue to be stable and a growing earnings engine. Georgia continues to be a big question mark. We’ve managed to keep it running, but we don’t have any workforce housing orders yet in Georgia, so we’re relying on the old-fashioned selling to dealers and selling to parks and selling through our company stores. That does not have enough volume to keep us running at profitable, at profitable production. As I’ve said before, Legacy has never had a quarter loss in our entire history, and Q1 of 2026 has kept that streak going, as will Q2.

We’re conservatively capitalized, focused on long-term value creation, confident in our ability to weather some near storm volatility while positioning for long-term growth as housing affordability becomes more and more important to U.S. consumers and policymakers, especially if interest rates remain at 6% or above. Operator, that concludes our prepared remarks. Please open up the line for questions and answers.

Conference Operator, Moderator: Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Alex Rygiel of Texas Capital Securities. Your line is open.

Alex Rygiel, Analyst, Texas Capital Securities: Good afternoon, Curtis Hodgson and Jon Langbert. great to hear from you both. Curtis Hodgson, I always appreciate your broader perspective on the economy and broader housing market trends. I’m curious in your views, how you think that has changed over the last three months.

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: Well, you know, on the 10,000-foot view, Alex, our demographics are not all that healthy. For the first year in history last year, we had more people moving out of the country than moving into the country, our birth rate is below 2. On a 10,000-foot view, we don’t need a lot of new bedrooms. We already have all we need. Growth is basically geographically very particular. We got growth in states like Texas and Florida, we don’t have growth in states like, you know, Indiana and Ohio. Fortunately, we do business south of the Mason-Dixon line, we still have a growing demographic in the states that we do business. As an aside, Kenny and I got into this business in 1980.

From 1980 to 1982, you young men that weren’t living through it have read the history books, your history books. That was the highest interest rate environment in the history of our company, where the prime rate of interest got all the way, I believe it was to 18%. Those were very good years in the mobile home business because high interest rates locks consumers out of traditional site-built housing. Buying a $500,000 house at a 10% mortgage rate is prohibitive to almost anybody in this economy, which brings them down, just as it did in 1980, 1982, to things that we sell. Higher interest rates are not a bad fact to the manufactured housing industry. If anything, they’re a good fact. We still struggle on where you’re gonna put them.

We don’t have a lot of vacant spaces in in big cities. We don’t have very many mobile home parks coming online, although we’re, you know, as you know, we’re trying to do things in Texas. We don’t have a good answer to where are we gonna put them. Lots of headwinds. The industry itself has not grown in filling that void, and they haven’t grown on providing a neighborhood solution as the traditional home builders have, of which I know you follow many of them.

Even though that we have what should be tailwinds, we haven’t done a very good job as an industry of imitating the site-built housing people and selling communities solutions as opposed to, say, a Jim Walter solution, for those of you that are my age, where we’re just providing a house and somebody else has to put in the garage, somebody else has to put in the landscaping, somebody else has to put in the sprinkler system and the fence. We basically are providing part of the solution, but not all the solution. Whereas when you follow your site builders, they are solving almost all of the neighborhood problems. We’re trying to morph into that with our, you know, huge development outside of Austin, which has got a lot of good news this week, if anybody was paying attention.

Within four miles of our location, we have thousands of jobs that have just been announced in the future. That particular location, I’m very confident of, and we’ve made very little progress on our other land holdings. I know I went above and beyond answering your question, but at least I did answer your question. Anything else, Alex?

Alex Rygiel, Analyst, Texas Capital Securities: Yes, that was very helpful. Historically, the company has seen some positive seasonality after tax season. You know, since we’re past that, can you kinda comment on demand in April and early May?

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: Sure. I mean, I don’t know we could stomach much more demand in Texas. With all our orders we already have in place, we’re probably already out to August or September. We’d have to bump somebody in the line to take more orders. We did get a little seasonality bump in Georgia, the way we’re able to turn the spigot back on. We don’t have much backlog in Georgia. Without the data centers and without, you know, the oil field boom, which Georgia doesn’t participate in hardly at all at either of those, good old-fashioned mobile home business, the street dealers and the parks, is rather tepid.

I don’t mind going on record on this thing, and I think followers of my peer group are already figured it out based on the punishment that they gave the stock prices this week. I did notice before the call that our stock was actually up on what I consider fair but not great reports. We’re in good shape as a company, and our next two quarters should be pretty doggone impressive based on houses already built in our, in our yard that we’re starting to ship to these major customers in Texas. That’s what I see. To answer your question, in summary, traditional demand is not great, but non-traditional demand, like data centers and oil field, is as good as I’ve seen it ever since Rita and Katrina in 2005.

A lot of good news, but a little bit of bad news.

Alex Rygiel, Analyst, Texas Capital Securities: One last question. As it relates to the workforce housing order that you have, that’s fantastic. Kinda turning the page, how do future prospects look, and when might we hear about other sort of big orders into this market?

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: In Texas, we’re working several big orders. I mean, huge orders. You know, none of them have turned into a deposit yet, but we’re working that angle. The, you know, the big 7 companies that are involved in data centers are making a multi-trillion dollar commitment to this space. Compare it to, say, the stimulus that was given to the economy after COVID by the U.S. government. In size, the stimulus that these 7 are giving the economy is comparable to the, to the stimulus that the U.S. government gave a few years back in COVID, which was significant stimulus. Let’s take a data center manufacturer. He is putting on his balance sheet an asset, but he’s putting on my balance sheet income, as well as everybody in the construction business in this region.

The fact that income is gonna be up for everybody in this region is a pretty remarkable amount of stimulus. There’s a little bit of that going on on a nationwide basis, including Georgia, and even on a worldwide basis. In our market, Texas and Louisiana, there is so much data center business that is actually gonna happen by these seven companies investing mega capital. I think we’re good probably all the way through 27 and maybe beyond that. Business is good in Texas. That’s all I can tell you.

Alex Rygiel, Analyst, Texas Capital Securities: Good to hear. Thank you very much.

Conference Operator, Moderator: Thank you. As a reminder, if you have a question, please press star one one. Our next question comes from Mark Smith of Lake Street. Your line is open.

Mark Smith, Analyst, Lake Street: Hi, guys. I wanted to ask just for a little more detail, if you can, Curtis, on this workforce housing deal, just maybe, you know, any more insight you can give us on kinda the size and maybe the, you know, timing of revenue recognition as we work through the year.

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: Yeah, I can do that. I would guess that we have already had somewhere around 600 units with deposit in this category out of Texas. Which it was about half of our entire production last year in Texas, maybe even more than half. The orders actually started in December, but they weren’t ready for the houses, but we needed the orders, so we built them anyway. Of the 600, at least half of them will be shipped in Q2, with the remaining being shipped in Q3 and Q4. That’s kind of where we’re at. Remember, to Alex Rygiel’s question, Mark Smith, I tipped my hand and said we are in the process of taking even more. I mean, think of the double whammy we have here, Mark Smith.

We got data centers all over the state of Texas. We got West Texas crude selling at nearly $100 a barrel, which we have historically always gotten orders whenever there’s a boom in the oil field. I don’t know. If you can tell me when the Iran war is gonna be over and what’s gonna happen to oil prices, I might have a different opinion. If this $90-$100 barrel holds, we’re not only gonna have lots of orders for data centers, we’re gonna have lots of orders for the Permian Basin as well. It’ll lift all boats. I mean, every manufacturer is gonna get a benefit. We’re not uniquely qualified. There’s 34 operating plants in the state of Texas.

We’re all gonna rise together, and we won’t need independent dealers like we have in the past. We won’t even need our own company stores. Now we keep growing them, but I would rather build a mass sale to Google than create too much inventory in my company stores in a rather tepid work or a business climate. Again, the theme remains the same. If you’ve been following these calls, because I know you’ve been on them, Mark, all I’m doing is backing up what I already predicted two calls ago and with real numbers. We’re in good shape for a long time, and it’s gonna show up beginning in Q2, blossom in Q3 and 4, and we may have three of the best quarters coming up in front of us.

I don’t like to overpromise and underdeliver. You’ve known me for, shit, Mark, probably eight or nine years, and you know that I’m pretty conservative in these projections. I know what’s in, and it would be nonsensical for me to not reveal it. We’re gonna have good three quarters starting in Q2.

Mark Smith, Analyst, Lake Street: Okay. Perfect. The other one was just it was pretty impressive cut in SG&A this quarter, and I know there’s obviously been some changes there. If you could just talk maybe about the sustainability of SG&A, if there’s other further cuts or maybe if we, you know, with the orders coming out, if there’s some stuff that you need to add.

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: Well, I wish this was a video call because you’d see a picture of me with a machete. I’ve just begun to cut SG&A, and not everybody is supportive of that. Come on now. We have $500 million worth of money invested in paper. That doesn’t take any SG&A or hardly any. I’m tired of SG&A growing in the company when the rest of the company is not growing. I would expect to see further declines in SG&A. I don’t know how much we can get it down to because as Jon correctly pointed out, SG&A is not just sales, general, and administrative. It includes things like warranty. It includes things like reserves and provisions for loan losses. This all gets put in SG&A.

But from a pure people and expense, the SG&A, I would expect further declines, but I don’t know what our auditors are going to require for loan provisions that I think are nonsensical. I don’t know what skeletons are going to come up in the warranty department from yesteryear, ’cause we built some stuff that has been a legal issue. Part of our SG&A is still going to go down, while part of it may not. I would expect maybe a 10% reduction by the end of the year in SG&A.

Mark Smith, Analyst, Lake Street: Okay. You spoke earlier about inflationary pressures, tariffs, whatnot. You know, do you think your SG&A cuts and then is that enough to make up for maybe some of the inflationary pressures that you could see? Is there anywhere that you can cut kind of within the COGS to get the product costs down?

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: I got to go back to 10,000 foot view. The problem in the industry is all of the major manufacturers have been trying to build a cheaper product. Anytime they can take $10 out, they consider it a triumph. I mean, the natural result of that is the product isn’t all that desirable. It doesn’t have basic features like, say, medicine cabinets. We’ve taken a different tack. We’re going to not build the cheapest product possible and build to the middle of the market. Just recently, we’ve begun to prove that theory out at the retail level with our own company stores. We are not gonna spiral this into who can sell the cheapest one at the lowest margin, because that’s a recipe for failure.

We’re gonna abandon that philosophy and concentrate on the middle market. I kinda danced around your question, and I’m not even sure I can remember what the question was because I got off on my, a different, a different subject. The low-end nature of our product is not where I think this market needs to go. This market needs to do more like the site-built housing and sell more of a turnkey solution to housing and get off the idea the guy has to buy his own medicine cabinet, if you know what I mean.

Mark Smith, Analyst, Lake Street: Yeah.

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: That I think was a little probative of what you asked, but maybe I went too far. I don’t know. Let me know.

Mark Smith, Analyst, Lake Street: No.

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: Anything, Mark?

Mark Smith, Analyst, Lake Street: That, that No, that hit a lot of it. Maybe just another part of it to ask is just with changes in immigration and kind of your own workforce, you know, are you seeing pressure on labor and your ability to kind of hit your production goals?

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: As the younger generation would say, Mark, 100%. I mean, deportations have hurt our sales to the Spanish market. I think that’s unfortunate, but it’s okay. The interesting fact is our retail portfolio, which is 70% Hispanic, is behaving incredibly well. We haven’t experienced a big uptick in repossessions. A little bit. I would say we’re now repossessing in roughly 4% per year. That is the historical norm in this industry. When we were repoing at only 2% per year, it was because there was this quantum leap in prices during COVID, and everybody was right side up in what they owed on their mobile home. Those increases in prices ended four years ago.

In four years, we’ve had no substantial increase in prices in this industry since COVID. Because the loans made then in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, we have consumers that aren’t, you know, well-covered by the value of their mobile home. I think that’s the reason why repossessions are increasing back to historical norms. Deportations are not affecting our loan portfolio, but they are affecting the sentiment of people on whether they want to buy a mobile home, you know, with the threat that some family member may be deported, and they all wanna go back home with them. It has affected who we sell to retail and how we sell to them, but it has not affected our portfolio. I think that does answer your question, correct?

Mark Smith, Analyst, Lake Street: That, that does. Thank you.

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: Okay.

Conference Operator, Moderator: Thank you. I’m showing no further questions at this time. I’d like to turn it back to Curtis Hodgson for closing remarks.

Curtis Hodgson, Executive Chairman of the Board, Legacy Housing Corporation: Sure. Thanks everybody who joined the call today. I appreciate your interest in our company, and that ends the call from my perspective.

Conference Operator, Moderator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.