“We continue to target an overall mix of 60% optioned and 40% owned over the longer-term.”

In context

“ent construction schedule. The other 65% of our projected 2024 deliveries are either in our backlog, which stood at nearly 6,600 homes and $6.95 billion at fiscal year-end or our build-to-order homes that have already sold or will be sold in this first quarter. This provides a solid base of high-margin homes to drive 2024 results. We expect community count growth to also help drive results in fiscal 2024. We plan to increase community count by 10% this year and are targeting 410 operating communities at year-end. Importantly, we control sufficient land for community count growth beyond 2024. At fiscal year-end 2023, we controlled approximately 70,700 lots, 49% of which were optioned. Excluding the 6,578 lots committed to home buyers in our backlog, our option land represented 54% of lots. We continue to target an overall mix of 60% optioned and 40% owned over the longer-term. We also continue to be selective and disciplined in our approach to buying land. We assess all land deals whether they involve new land opportunities or take-downs under existing options with underwriting standards focused on both margins and returns. This approach and our overall focus on capital efficiency has helped drive our ROE over 20% for the past two years. In our fourth quarter, we repurchased $326 million of our common stock, bringing our full year repurchases to $556 million at an average price of $72 per share. During fiscal 2023, we repurchased approximately 7% of our diluted shares outstanding at the beginning of the year. We also paid $91 million in dividends in fiscal 2023. Buybacks and dividends will remain an important part of our capital allocation priorities well into”