Written by StockNews.com

Lennar Corporation (NYSE: LEN) early Tuesday [Mar 21, 2017 | 6:19am] posted market-beating fiscal first quarter earnings results, as its deliveries and backlog surged from the year-ago period.

The Miami-based homebuilder reported adjusted Q1 earnings per share (EPS) $0.59, which was $0.04 better than the Wall Street consensus estimate of $0.55.

Revenues rose 17.2% from last year to $2.34 billion, also topping analysts’ view for $2.18 billion.

Lennar noted that home deliveries in the latest period rose 13% to 5,453 homes. Meanwhile, new orders were up 12% to 6,483 homes, with a total dollar value of $2.4 billion — up 16%.

At the end of the first quarter, LEN’s backlog grew 18% to 9,017 homes. Its total backlog dollar value gained 24% to $3.5 billion.

The company commented via press release:

“Our core homebuilding business continued to produce strong operating results in the first quarter of 2017 as gross and operating margins were 21.1% and 10.8%, respectively. Our continued investments in technology led to our lowest first quarter S,G&A as a percentage of revenues from home sales of 10.3%. Our home deliveries and new orders increased 13% and 12%, respectively, compared to last year, while our backlog dollar value increased 24% from last year to $3.5 billion.”

Lennar Corporation shares were unchanged in premarket trading Tuesday. Year-to-date, LEN has gained 22.82%, versus a 5.92% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index during the same period.

LEN currently has a StockNews.com POWR Rating of A (Strong Buy), and is ranked #2 of 24 stocks in the Homebuilders category.