Investing.com -- Shares in KB Home soared more than 8% on Friday after the Los Angeles-based homebuilder posted better than expected revenues for the three-month quarter that ended in February.
KB Home, one of the nation’s largest homebuilder, reported revenues of $580 million during the period – an increase of more than 29% in comparison with the same period from last year. The company has now experienced gains in each of its last 14 quarters on a year-over-year basis.
In addition, KB Home reported net income of $8 million for the period and earnings of .08 per diluted share.
“We are pleased with the robust growth in our first quarter net orders, net order value and backlog levels, which was fueled primarily by our expanded community count and healthy buyer demand,” said Jeffrey Mezger, KB Home president and CEO.
Shares in KB Home rose 1.18 points or 8.38% to 15.26 on Friday.
“Having successfully opened 32 new home communities across our geographic footprint, we ended the quarter with 25% more active communities than we had a year ago, positioning us well as we enter the spring selling season and setting the foundation for a strong finish to 2015,” Mezger added. “With our expanding community count, we are poised to generate further momentum in our business and prepared to capture pent-up demand for housing as it is unlocked by improvement in fundamental demographic, economic and housing market dynamics.”
The positive earnings report comes days after a report from the National Association of Home Builders indicated that housing starts for the month of February dropped by 17% to an annual rate of 897,000 due to poor weather conditions.