By Dhirendra Tripathi

Investing.com – Lennar Corporation stock (NYSE:) fell 5% in Thursday’s premarket trading after the company’s fourth-quarter earnings and sales fell short of estimates.

Earnings rose 35%, to $1.2billion or $3.91 per Share, despite high labor costs and the use of expensive raw materials. This was lower than analysts expected at $4.15.

The earnings were also affected due to the high cost of lumber purchased by the company at high prices. If it weren’t for the mark-to-market loss incurred by investments in technology, profit would have been greater.

Labor and supply chain issues constrained the company’s home-building efforts in the quarter ended November 30, the company said, even as deliveries rose 11%, to 17,819 homes.

Company closed out the month with an inventory of 23771 homes valued at $11.4 billion. This is up by 26% and 45 percent, respectively.

The company made progress on its strategy of being “land-light.” The number of years of owned homesites improved to 3 from 3.5 last year. According to the company’s statement, the land-light strategy helped boost cash flows which were used by the company to repay debt and buy shares.

Due to an increase of 11% in home deliveries, and a rise of 14% in the average sale price, revenue rose 24% to $8.4Billion.

From 7.5% last quarter, the percentage of income from home sales rose to 6.6%. It attributed the decrease in commissions to brokers as well as its increased use of technology to improve its business processes.

The company anticipates that new orders will be placed for approximately 12,500 units, and 14,800 of the 15,100 units in the current quarter.

The company expects full-year deliveries to reach 67,000 units, and the average selling price of $460,000 for both the quarters as well as the whole year.