IRVINE, CA—TRI Pointe Homes, Inc. said Friday that first-quarter new home orders were up 79% over last year. The company also reported a 31% jump in deliveries and net income of $15.3%.

Last July, TRI Pointe consummated the merger with Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Company (WRECO). The merger was accounted for as a “reverse acquisition” of TRI Pointe by WRECO. As a result, legacy TRI Pointe's financial results are only included in the combined company's financial statements from the closing date forward and are not reflected in the combined company's historical financial statements. Accordingly, legacy TRI Pointe's financial results are not included in the GAAP results for the three months ended March 31, 2014 included in this press release. The company has appended Supplemental Combined Company Information to this press release to provide supplemental financial and operational information of the combined company that is “adjusted” to include legacy TRI Pointe's standalone operations for the relevant periods prior to the merger.

“2015 is off to a great start for TRI Pointe”, said CEO Doug Bauer. “We sold 3.5 homes per community per month in the first quarter of 2015, compared to 2.5 homes per community in the first quarter of 2014. This improvement in sales pace can be attributed to the implementation of TRI Pointe's operating philosophy across our homebuilding platform as well as an overall improvement in market conditions. In addition to the increased sales pace, homebuilding operating margins expanded 130 basis points compared to the GAAP operating margins from the same period last year, thanks to better than projected gross margins and continued fixed cost leverage. These improvements, combined with the opening of 16 new communities in the quarter and excellent new land positions make us very optimistic about the future of our company.”

Results and Operational Data for First Quarter 2015 and Comparisons to First Quarter 2014

• Net income was $15.3 million, or $0.09 per diluted share compared to $7.6 million, or $0.06 per diluted share.

• New home orders increased to 1,194 compared to 667, an increase of 79%.

• Active selling communities averaged 113.0 compared to 90.7.

• New home orders per average selling community were 10.6 orders (3.5 monthly) compared to 7.4 orders (2.5 monthly), an increase of 44%.

• Cancellation rate improved to 11% compared to 15%.

• Backlog units of 1,558 homes with a dollar value increase of 59%, to $943.4 million.

• Average sales price in backlog increased 8% to $605,000.

• Home sales revenue of $374.3 million, an increase of 55%.

• New homes deliveries of 668, up 31%.

• Average sales price of homes delivered grew 18% to $560,000.

• Homebuilding gross margin percentage of 19.9%.

• Excluding interest, impairments and lot option abandonments, adjusted homebuilding gross margin percentage was 21.8%.

“We are starting to see the benefits of the merger with WRECO throughout our operations, said Thomas Mitchell, TRI Pointe's president and chief operating officer “Each of our homebuilding brands has embraced the new operating framework and delivered excellent sales results in the first quarter. SG&A expenses were down as a percent of homebuilding revenues by 230 basis points compared to the GAAP results in the first quarter of 2014.”