Green Brick Partners (GRBK) Risk Factors

As a homebuilder, we are subject to construction defect and home warranty claims arising in the ordinary course of business. These claims are common in the homebuilding industry and can be costly and once claims are asserted, it can be difficult to determine the extent to which the assertion will expand in number or geographically. In addition, the costs of insuring against construction defect and product liability claims are high. This coverage may be restricted and become more costly in the future. If the limits or coverages of our current and former insurance programs prove inadequate, or we are not able to obtain adequate or reasonably priced insurance against these types of claims in the future, or the amounts currently provided for future warranty or insurance claims are inadequate, we may experience losses that could negatively impact our financial results. We self-insure some of our risks through a wholly-owned insurance subsidiary. We record expenses and liabilities based on the estimated costs required to cover our self-insured liability. These estimated costs are based on an analysis of our historical claims and industry data and include an estimate of claims incurred but not yet reported. The projection of losses related to these liabilities requires actuarial assumptions that are subject to variability due to uncertainties regarding construction defect claims relative to our markets and the types of products we build, insurance industry practices, and legal or regulatory actions and/or interpretations, among other factors.

On December 22, 2017, the U.S. government enacted comprehensive tax legislation commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the "Tax Act"). The Tax Act made major changes to the Internal Revenue Code that, in part, affect the after-tax cost of owning a home. Specifically, the Tax Act limited the ability of homebuyers to deduct (i) property taxes, (ii) mortgage interest, and (iii) state and local income taxes. The annual deduction for real estate taxes and state and local income taxes (or sales taxes in lieu of income taxes) is now generally limited to $10,000. These changes increased the after-tax cost of owning a new home for many of our potential homebuyers and the potential homebuyers of our homebuilding customers. If the federal government or a state government further changes its income tax laws to further eliminate or substantially limit these income tax deductions, the after-tax cost of owning a new home would further increase for many of our potential customers. At the same time, favorable tax law changes will not necessarily increase demand or allow for higher selling prices. The loss or reduction of homeowner tax deductions that have historically been available has reduced and could further reduce the perceived affordability of homeownership, and therefore the demand for and sales price of new homes, including ours. In addition, increases in property tax rates or fees on developers by local governmental authorities, as experienced in response to reduced federal and state funding or to fund local initiatives, such as funding schools or road improvements, or increases in insurance premiums can adversely affect the ability of potential customers to obtain financing or their desire to purchase new homes, and can have an adverse impact on our business and financial results.

Competition in the land development and homebuilding industries in our markets is intense, and there are relatively low barriers to entry. Land developers and homebuilders compete for, among other things, homebuyers, desirable land parcels, financing, raw materials and skilled labor. Increased competition could hurt our business, as it could prevent us from acquiring attractive land parcels for development and resale or homebuilding (or make such acquisitions more expensive), hinder our market share expansion and lead to pricing pressures that adversely impact our margins and revenues. Our business, liquidity, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected if we are unable to compete successfully. Our competitors may independently develop land and construct housing units that are superior or substantially similar to our products. Furthermore, a number of our primary competitors are significantly larger, have a longer operating history and may have greater resources or lower cost of capital than us. Accordingly, competitors may be able to compete more effectively in one or more of the markets in which we operate. Many of these competitors also have longstanding relationships with subcontractors, suppliers, and developers in the markets in which we operate. Our homebuilding business also competes for sales with resales of existing homes and with available rental housing.

Our success also depends on our reputation and our brand image. Any unfavorable media coverage related to our industry, brand, personnel or operations may adversely affect our stock price and the performance of our business, regardless of its accuracy or inaccuracy. Negative publicity spreads quickly through the use of electronic communications, including social media outlets, websites, "tweets", blogs and other digital platforms. Our success in maintaining and expanding our brand image depends on our ability to adapt to this rapidly changing media environment. Negative publicity or negative commentary from any media outlets could damage our reputation and reduce the demand for our homes, which would adversely affect our business.

The climates and geology of the states in which we operate present increased risks of severe weather conditions and natural disasters. The occurrence of severe weather conditions or natural disasters can delay new home deliveries and lot development, reduce the availability of materials and/or negatively impact the demand for new homes in affected areas. Additionally, to the extent that hurricanes, severe storms, earthquakes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, hail, wildfires or other natural disasters or similar events occur, our homes under construction or our lots under development could be damaged or destroyed, which may result in losses exceeding our insurance coverage. Any of these events could increase our operating expenses, impair our cash flows and reduce our revenues. To the extent that climate change increases the frequency and severity of weather-related disasters, we may experience increasing negative weather-related impacts to our operations in the future. Further, acts of war, any outbreak or escalation of hostilities between the United States and any foreign power or acts of terrorism may cause disruptions to the U.S. economy or the local economies of the markets in which we operate, cause shortages of building materials, increase costs associated with obtaining building materials, affect job growth and consumer confidence or cause economic changes that we cannot anticipate, all of which could reduce demand for our lots, homes and construction loans and adversely impact our business and results of operations.

We rely on information technology systems and other computer resources to carry out operational and marketing activities, as well as to maintain our business records. As part of our normal business activities, we may collect and store certain confidential information, including information about employees, homebuyers, customers, vendors and suppliers and may share information with vendors who assist us with certain aspects of our business. Many of these resources are provided to us and/or maintained on our behalf by third-party service providers pursuant to agreements that specify certain security and service level standards. Our ability to conduct our business may be impaired if these resources are compromised, degraded, damaged or fail, whether due to a virus or other harmful circumstance, intentional penetration or disruption of our information technology resources by a third-party, social engineering attempts, natural disaster, hardware or software corruption or failure or error (including a failure of security controls incorporated into or applied to such hardware or software), telecommunications system failure, service provider error or failure, intentional or unintentional personnel actions (including the failure to follow our security protocols) or lost connectivity to networked resources. There has been an increase in cyber-attacks in recent years. Breaches of our data security systems, including by cyber-attacks, could result in the unintended public disclosure or the misappropriation of our proprietary information or personal and confidential information, about our employees, consumers who view our homes, homebuyers or our business partners, which could require us to incur significant expense to address and resolve such issues. The release of confidential information may also lead to identity theft and related fraud, litigation or other proceedings against us by affected individuals, business partners and/or regulators, and the outcome of such proceedings, which could include penalties or fines, and any significant disruption of our business could have a material and adverse effect on our reputation resulting in the loss of customers, sales and revenue. Data protection and privacy laws continue to evolve and become more complex in various U.S. federal and state jurisdictions. Such regulatory changes, variations in requirements across jurisdictions and ongoing discussions about a national privacy laws could present compliance challenges. The costs of complying with such changes could adversely affect our business. We maintain insurance coverage for potential breaches but the costs to remedy a breach may not be fully covered by our insurance. We provide employee awareness training of cybersecurity threats and utilize information technology security experts to assist us in our evaluations of the effectiveness of the security of our information technology systems, and we regularly enhance our security measures to protect our systems and data. We use various encryption, tokenization and authentication technologies to mitigate cybersecurity risks and have increased our monitoring capabilities to enhance early detection and rapid response to potential cyber threats. While we have not had a significant cybersecurity breach or attack that had a material impact on our business or operations, there can be no assurance that our efforts to maintain the security and integrity of our information technology systems will be effective or that attempted breaches would not be successful in the future.