ITEM I.    BUSINESS

PulteGroup, Inc.

PulteGroup, Inc. is a Michigan corporation organized in 1956. We are one of the largest homebuilders in the United States ("U.S."), and our common shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “PHM”. Unless the context otherwise requires, the terms "PulteGroup", the "Company", "we", "us", and "our" used herein refer to PulteGroup, Inc. and its subsidiaries. While our subsidiaries engage primarily in the homebuilding business, we also have mortgage banking operations, conducted principally through Pulte Mortgage LLC (“Pulte Mortgage”), and title operations.

Homebuilding, our core business, includes the acquisition and development of land primarily for residential purposes within the U.S. and the construction of housing on such land. We offer a broad product line to meet the needs of homebuyers in our targeted markets. Through our brands, which include Centex, Pulte Homes, Del Webb, DiVosta Homes, and John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods, we offer a wide variety of home designs, including single-family detached, townhouses, condominiums, and duplexes at different prices and with varying levels of options and amenities to our major customer groups: first-time, move-up, and active adult. Over our history, we have delivered over 700,000 homes.

As of December 31, 2017 , we conducted our operations in 47 markets located throughout 25 states. For reporting purposes, our Homebuilding operations are aggregated into six reportable segments:

We also have a reportable segment for our financial services operations, which consist principally of mortgage banking and title operations. Our Financial Services segment operates generally in the same geographic markets as our Homebuilding segments.

Financial information for each of our reportable business segments is included in Note 3 to our Consolidated Financial Statements.

Available information

Our internet website address is www.pultegroupinc.com . Our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act are available free of charge through our website as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file them with or furnish them to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our code of ethics for principal officers, our code of ethical business conduct, our corporate governance guidelines, and the charters of the Audit, Compensation and Management Development, Nominating and Governance, and Finance and Investment Committees of our Board of Directors are also posted on our website and are available in print, free of charge, upon request.

After several years of declining sales volume, new home sales in the U.S. increased in 2012 for the first time since 2005, beginning a multi-year recovery in demand. This trend continued in 2017 as new home sales in the U.S. rose 8% over 2016 to approximately 608,000 homes, approximately double the number from 2011, the bottom of the most recent housing downturn. Additionally, mortgage interest rates remain near historic lows and the overall inventory of homes available for sale, especially new homes, remains low. Although the recovery in housing demand has been slow by historical standards, the improved demand environment and actions we have taken to improve business performance have contributed to significant increases in our income before income taxes for the period 2013 - 2017. We continue to believe that the national publicly-traded builders will have a competitive advantage over local builders through their ability to access more reliable and lower cost financing through the capital markets, control and entitle large land positions, gain better access to scarce labor resources, and achieve greater geographic and product diversification. Among our national publicly-traded peer group, we believe that builders with broad geographic and product diversity and sustainable capital positions will benefit as market conditions continue to recover. In the short-term, we expect that overall market conditions will continue to improve but that improvements will occur unevenly across our markets. Our strategy to enhance shareholder value is centered around the following operational objectives:

Our Homebuilding operations are geographically diverse within the U.S. As of December 31, 2017 , we had 790 active communities spanning 47 markets across 25 states. Sales prices of unit closings during 2017 ranged from approximately $100,000 to over $2,000,000 , with 90% falling within the range of $200,000 to $750,000 . The average unit selling price in 2017 was $395,000 , compared with $373,000 in 2016 , $338,000 in 2015 , $329,000 in 2014 , and $305,000 in 2013 . The increase in average selling price in recent years resulted from a number of factors, including favorable market conditions, a shift in our sales mix toward move-up homebuyers, and changes in the geographical mix of homes sold. Our average unit selling price in 2016 was also impacted by our acquisition in January 2016 of substantially all of the assets of JW Homes ("Wieland), which are geared toward move-up homebuyers.

Sales of single-family detached homes, as a percentage of total unit sales, were 88% in 2017 , compared with 87% in 2016 , 86% in 2015 , 86% in 2014 , and 85% in 2013 . The increase in the percentage of single-family detached homes can be attributed to a shift in our business toward move-up homebuyers, who tend to prefer detached homes.

Backlog, which represents orders for homes that have not yet closed, was $4.0 billion ( 8,996 units) at December 31, 2017 and $2.9 billion ( 7,422 units) at December 31, 2016 . For orders in backlog, we have received a signed customer contract and customer deposit, which is refundable in certain instances. Of the orders in backlog at December 31, 2017 , substantially all are scheduled to be closed during 2018 , though all orders are subject to potential cancellation by or final negotiations with the customer. In the event of cancellation, the majority of our sales contracts stipulate that we have the right to retain the customer’s deposit, though we may choose to refund the deposit in certain instances.

Land acquisition and development

We acquire land primarily for the construction of homes for sale. We select locations for development of homebuilding communities after completing a feasibility study, which includes, among other things, soil tests, independent environmental studies and other engineering work, an evaluation of necessary zoning and other governmental entitlements, and extensive market research that enables us to match the location with our product offering to meet the needs of consumers. We consider factors such as proximity to developed areas, population and job growth patterns, and, if applicable, estimated development costs. We frequently manage a portion of the risk of controlling our land positions through the use of land option contracts, which enable us to defer acquiring portions of properties owned by land sellers until we have determined whether and when to exercise our option. Our use of land option agreements can serve to reduce the financial risk associated with long-term land holdings. We typically acquire land with the intent to complete sales of housing units within 24 to 36 months from the date of opening a community, except in the case of certain Del Webb active adult developments and other large master-planned projects for which the completion of community build-out requires a longer time period. While our overall supply of controlled land is in excess of our short-term needs in many of our markets, some of our controlled land consists of long-term positions that will not be converted to home sales in the near term. Accordingly, we remain active in our pursuit of new land investment. We may also periodically sell select parcels of land to third parties for commercial or other development if we determine that they do not fit into our strategic operating plans.

Land is generally purchased after it is zoned and developed, or is ready for development, for our intended use. In the normal course of business, we periodically sell land not required by our homebuilding operations. Where we develop land, we engage directly in many phases of the development process, including: land and site planning; obtaining environmental and other regulatory approvals; and constructing roads, sewers, water and drainage facilities, and community amenities, such as parks, pools, and clubhouses. We use our staff and the services of independent engineers and consultants for land development activities. Land development work is performed primarily by independent contractors and, when needed, local government authorities who construct sewer and water systems in some areas. At December 31, 2017 , we controlled 141,409 lots, of which 89,253 were owned and 52,156 were under land option agreements.

Sales and marketing

We are dedicated to improving the quality and value of our homes through innovative architectural and community designs. Analyzing various qualitative and quantitative data obtained through extensive market research, we stratify our potential customers into well-defined homebuyer groups. Such stratification provides a method for understanding the business opportunities and risks across the full spectrum of consumer groups in each market. Once the needs of potential homebuyers are understood, we link our home design and community development efforts to the specific lifestyle of each consumer group. Through our understanding of each consumer group, we are able to provide homes that better meet the needs and wants of each homebuyer.

Our homes targeted to first-time homebuyers tend to be smaller with product offerings geared toward lower average selling prices or higher density. Move-up homebuyers tend to place more of a premium on location and amenities. These communities typically offer larger homes at higher price points. Through our Del Webb brand, we are better able to address the needs of active adults, to whom we offer both destination communities and “in place” communities, for homebuyers who prefer to remain in their current geographic area. Many of these communities are highly amenitized, offering a variety of features, including golf courses, recreational centers, and educational classes, to the age fifty-five and over homebuyer to maintain an active lifestyle. In order to make the cost of these highly amenitized communities affordable to the individual homeowner, Del Webb communities tend to be larger than first-time or move-up homebuyer communities.

As illustrated in the above table, our sales mix has shifted in recent years toward the move-up homebuyer where demand has been stronger. This shift in U.S. housing demand occurred primarily due to financial challenges facing the first-time homebuyer, despite a generally recovering U.S. economy, including the overhang of consumer debt, especially student loans related to higher education, and a more restrictive mortgage lending environment. However, the first-time homebuyer has

historically played a major role in new housing, and we believe that our first-time homebuyer volume has been increasing recently and will continue to increase in coming years.

We market our homes to prospective homebuyers through internet listings and link placements, mobile applications, media advertising, illustrated brochures, and other advertising displays. We have made significant enhancements in our tools and business practices to adapt our selling efforts to today's tech-enabled customers. In addition, our websites ( www.centex.com, www.pulte.com, www.delwebb.com, www.divosta.com, and www.jwhomes.com) provide tools to help users find a home that meets their needs, investigate financing alternatives, communicate moving plans, maintain a home, learn more about us, and communicate directly with us.

Our sales teams, in many cases together with outside sales brokers, are responsible for guiding the customer through the sales process. We are committed to industry-leading customer service through a variety of quality initiatives, including our customer care program, which seeks to ensure that homebuyers are comfortable at every stage of the process. Fully furnished and landscaped model homes physically located in our communities, which leverage the expertise of our interior designers, are generally used to showcase our homes and their distinctive design features. We are also introducing virtual reality walkthroughs of our house floor plans in certain communities to provide prospective homebuyers a more cost effective means to provide a realistic vision of our homes.

We believe that we are an innovator in consumer-inspired home design, and we view our design capabilities as an integral aspect of our marketing strategy. Our in-house architectural services teams and management, supplemented by outside consultants, follow a 12-step product development process to introduce new features and technologies based on customer-validated data. Following this disciplined process results in distinctive design features, both in exterior facades and interior options and features. We typically offer a variety of house floor plans and elevations in each community, including potential options and upgrades, such as different flooring, countertop, fixture, and appliance choices, and design our base house and option packages to meet the needs of our customers as defined through rigorous market research. Energy efficiency represents an important source of value for new homes compared with existing homes and represents a key area of focus for our home designs, including high efficiency heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems and insulation, low-emissivity windows, solar power in certain geographies, and other energy-efficient features.

Construction

The construction of our homes is conducted under the supervision of our on-site construction field managers. Substantially all of our construction work is performed by independent subcontractors under contracts that generally are priced on a fixed-price basis. Using a selective process, we have teamed up with what we believe are premier subcontractors and suppliers to deliver quality throughout all aspects of the house construction process.

Continuous improvement in our house construction process is a key area of focus. We seek to build superior quality homes while maintaining efficient construction operations by using standard materials and components from a variety of sources and by using industry and company-specific construction practices. We are improving our product offerings and production processes through the following programs:

The ability to consistently source qualified labor at reasonable prices remains challenging as labor supply growth has not kept pace with construction demand. Additionally, the cost of certain building materials, especially lumber, steel, concrete, copper, and petroleum-based materials, is influenced by changes in global commodity prices, national tariffs, and other foreign trade expenses. To protect against changes in construction costs, labor and materials costs are generally established prior to or near the time when related sales contracts are signed with customers. In addition, we leverage our size by actively negotiating for certain materials on a national or regional basis to minimize costs. We are also working to establish a more integrated

system that can effectively link suppliers, contractors, and the production schedule. However, we cannot determine the extent to which necessary building materials and labor will be available at reasonable prices in the future.

Competition

The housing industry in the U.S. is fragmented and highly competitive. While we are one of the largest homebuilders in the U.S., our national market share represented only approximately 3% of U.S. new home sales in 2017 . In each of our local markets, there are numerous national, regional, and local homebuilders with whom we compete. Additionally, new home sales have traditionally represented less than 15% of overall U.S. home sales (new and existing homes). Therefore, we also compete with sales of existing house inventory and any provider of for sale or rental housing units, including apartment operators. We compete primarily on the basis of location, price, quality, reputation, design, community amenities, and our customers' overall sales and homeownership experiences.

Seasonality

Although significant changes in market conditions have impacted our seasonal patterns in the past and could do so again, we historically experience variability in our quarterly results from operations due to the seasonal nature of the homebuilding industry. We generally experience increases in revenues and cash flow from operations during the fourth quarter based on the timing of home closings. This seasonal activity increases our working capital requirements in our third and fourth quarters to support our home production and loan origination volumes. As a result of the seasonality of our operations, our quarterly results of operations are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for the full year.

Regulation and environmental matters

Our operations are subject to extensive regulations imposed and enforced by various federal, state, and local governing authorities. These regulations are complex and include building codes, land zoning and other entitlement restrictions, health and safety regulations, labor practices, marketing and sales practices, environmental regulations, rules and regulations relating to mortgage financing and title operations, and various other laws, rules, and regulations. Collectively, these regulations have a significant impact on the site selection and development of our communities, our house design and construction techniques, our relationships with customers, employees, and suppliers / subcontractors, and many other aspects of our business. The applicable governing authorities frequently have broad discretion in administering these regulations, including inspections of our homes prior to closing with the customer in the majority of municipalities in which we operate.

Financial Services Operations

We conduct our financial services business, which includes mortgage and title operations, through Pulte Mortgage and other subsidiaries. Pulte Mortgage arranges financing through the origination of mortgage loans primarily for the benefit of our homebuyers. We are a lender approved by the Federal Housing Administration ("FHA") and Department of Veterans Affairs ("VA") and are a seller/servicer approved by Government National Mortgage Association ("Ginnie Mae"), Federal National Mortgage Association ("Fannie Mae"), Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("Freddie Mac"), and other investors. In our conventional mortgage lending activities, we follow underwriting guidelines established by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and private investors. We believe that our customers’ use of our in-house mortgage and title operations provides us with a competitive advantage by enabling more control over the quality of the overall home buying process for our customers, while also helping us align the timing of the house construction process with our customers’ financing needs.

Operating as a captive business model targeted to supporting our Homebuilding operations, the business levels of our Financial Services operations are highly correlated to Homebuilding. For homes sold, we originated the mortgage loans of 66% in 2017 , 65% in 2016 , 65% in 2015 , 61% in 2014 , and 64% in 2013 . Such originations represented substantially all of our total originations in each of those years. Our capture rate, which we define as loan originations from our homebuilding business as a percentage of total loan opportunities from our homebuilding business excluding cash settlements, was 80% in 2017 , 81% in 2016 , 83% in 2015 , 80% in 2014 , and 80% in 2013 .

In originating mortgage loans, we initially use our own funds, including funds available pursuant to credit agreements with third parties, and subsequently sell such mortgage loans to third party investors in the secondary market. Substantially all of the loans we originate are sold in the secondary market within a short period of time after origination, generally within 30 days. We also sell the servicing rights for the loans we originate through fixed price servicing sales contracts to reduce the risks

and costs inherent in servicing loans. This strategy results in owning the loans and related servicing rights for only a short period of time.

The mortgage industry in the U.S. is highly competitive. We compete with other mortgage companies and financial institutions to provide attractive mortgage financing to our homebuyers. We utilize a centralized fulfillment center for our mortgage operations that performs underwriting, processing, and closing functions. We believe centralizing both the fulfillment and origination of our loans improves the speed, efficiency, and quality of our mortgage operations, improving our profitability and allowing us to focus on providing attractive mortgage financing opportunities for our customers.

In originating and servicing mortgage loans, we are subject to the rules and regulations of the government-sponsored investors and other investors that purchase the loans we originate, as well as to those of other government agencies that have oversight of the government-sponsored investors or consumer lending rules in the U.S. In addition to being affected by changes in these programs, our mortgage banking business is also affected by many of the same factors that impact our homebuilding business.

Our mortgage operations may be responsible for losses associated with mortgage loans originated and sold to investors in the event of errors or omissions relating to representations and warranties made by us that the loans met certain requirements, including representations as to underwriting standards, the existence of primary mortgage insurance, and the validity of certain borrower representations in connection with the loan. If a loan is determined to be faulty, we either repurchase the loan from the investors or reimburse the investors' losses (a "make-whole" payment).

Our subsidiary title insurance companies serve as title insurance agents and underwriters in select markets by providing title insurance policies and examination and closing services to buyers of homes we sell. Historically, we have not experienced significant claims related to our title operations.

Financial Information About Geographic Areas

Substantially all of our operations are located within the U.S. We have some non-operating foreign subsidiaries and affiliates, which are insignificant to our consolidated financial results.

Organization/Employees

All subsidiaries and operating units operate independently with respect to daily operations. Homebuilding real estate purchases and other significant homebuilding, mortgage banking, financing activities, and similar operating decisions must be approved by the business unit’s management and/or corporate senior management.

At December 31, 2017 , we employed 4,810 people, of which 879 people were employed in our Financial Services operations. Except for a small group of employees, our employees are not represented by any union. Contracted work, however, may be performed by union contractors. Our local and corporate management personnel are paid incentive compensation, which is generally based on a combination of individual performance and the performance of the applicable business unit or the Company. Each business unit is given a level of autonomy regarding employment of personnel, subject to adherence to our established policies and procedures, and our senior corporate management acts in an advisory capacity in the employment of subsidiary officers. We consider our employee and contractor relations to be satisfactory.