KB Home (NYSE:KBH) Will Pay A Dividend Of $0.15

The board of KB Home (NYSE:KBH) has announced that it will pay a dividend of $0.15 per share on the 16th of February. The dividend yield is 1.7% based on this payment, which is a little bit low compared to the other companies in the industry.

View our latest analysis for KB Home

KB Home’s Dividend Is Well Covered By Earnings

The dividend yield is a little bit low, but sustainability of the payments is also an important part of evaluating an income stock. Before making this announcement, KB Home was easily earning enough to cover the dividend. As a result, a large proportion of what it earned was being reinvested back into the business.

EPS is set to fall by 28.4% over the next 12 months. Assuming the dividend continues along recent trends, we believe the payout ratio could be 12%, which we are pretty comfortable with and we think is feasible on an earnings basis.

Dividend Volatility

The company’s dividend history has been marked by instability, with at least one cut in the last 10 years. Since 2013, the dividend has gone from $0.25 total annually to $0.60. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 9.1% over that duration. A reasonable rate of dividend growth is good to see, but we’re wary that the dividend history is not as solid as we’d like, having been cut at least once.

The Dividend Looks Likely To Grow

Given that the dividend has been cut in the past, we need to check if earnings are growing and if that might lead to stronger dividends in the future. We are encouraged to see that KB Home has grown earnings per share at 36% per year over the past five years. A low payout ratio gives the company a lot of flexibility, and growing earnings also make it very easy for it to grow the dividend.

We Really Like KB Home’s Dividend

Overall, we think that this is a great income investment, and we think that maintaining the dividend this year may have been a conservative choice. The earnings easily cover the company’s distributions, and the company is generating plenty of cash. We should point out that the earnings are expected to fall over the next 12 months, which won’t be a problem if this doesn’t become a trend, but could cause some turbulence in the next year. Taking this all into consideration, this looks like it could be a good dividend opportunity.

Market movements attest to how highly valued a consistent dividend policy is compared to one which is more unpredictable. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. Case in point: We’ve spotted 4 warning signs for KB Home (of which 2 make us uncomfortable!) you should know about. Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our collection of strong dividend payers.

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