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Years from now, when Hilla Sferruzza recalls her initial actions to buffer the impact of COVID-19 on home builder Meritage Homes Corp. (NYSE: MTH)\xa0of Scottsdale, Arizona, she will likely not forget the seemingly endless calls that she placed to land sellers across the country.

\u201cIt\u2019s not like I\u2019m calling a manufacturer and telling them to bring less raw material to my factory. I\u2019m calling land sellers in every one of our markets to start the renegotiation process,\u201d says Sferruzza, who, as finance chief for the seventh-largest public home builder in the U.S., is no doubt accustomed to having her calls returned.

\u201cThey\u2019re reading the same newspapers that we are and they know what\u2019s going on, so they\u2019re fairly understanding,\u201d observes Sferruzza, who has been using her phone time to push back on seller payment terms and defer or delay home building projects in nine different states.

Meanwhile, Karri Callahan, CFO of RE/MAX Holdings (NYSE: RMAX), the global franchisor of real estate brokerages, has been formulating her own mode of outreach to RE/MAX\u2019s franchisees, who understandably have been signaling some pushback of their own.

Factors such as social distancing and governmental stay-at-home orders are slowing the amount of home buying and forcing real estate brokers to tighten their belts. Suddenly, the franchise fees that real estate brokers pay to RE/MAX and other franchisors are looming large on broker P&Ls, leading franchisors to take action and pull back fees.

\u201cOur franchisees can now defer their fees and pay them back later in the year as real estate transactions occur, or they can pay now, but at a reduced rate of 50% of what they would have normally paid,\u201d explains Callahan.

Still, it\u2019s the variances of COVID-19\u2019s impact from state to state that is summoning real estate CFOs like Sferruzza and Callahan to be more accessible and visible to their firm\u2019s extended network of partners and stakeholders across different geographies.

\u201cClearly, some of the challenges have to do with how different governments\u2014whether at the state, county, or city level\u2014have classified real estate and whether it\u2019s classified as \u2018essential.\u2019 But transactions are still occurring, albeit at a reduced velocity,\u201d says Callahan, who credits the size and breadth of RE/MAX\u2019s franchise network with helping to minimize the impact of those jurisdictions that have classified real estate transactions as being \u201cnonessential.\u201d

To better assess Meritage\u2019s sales pipeline and extend her lines of sight deeper into the business, Sferruzza has been keeping a close eye on sales appointment numbers. \u201cI\u2019m also looking at cancellations because as important as it is for us to get sales, I need to make sure that the backlog\u2019s not eroding at a magnitude that\u2019s overcoming sales,\u201d she notes.

Still, when it comes to protecting the health of the business, Meritage\u2019s CFO makes it clear that her primary focus remains on cash flow and preserving whatever she can of it to help Meritage weather what lies ahead. Hence her recent outreach to land sellers.

\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty long cycle, and there is a substantial cash outlay at the start of the life of a community versus at the tail end, which is really when it is cash flow positive,\u201d reports Sferuzza, who estimates that the cash outlays for most of Meritage\u2019s communities run two to three years before becoming cash flow positive.

\u201cWe have to buy the land, which is expensive, and we have to develop the land, which is expensive. We have to build the models and then we have to build the homes,\u201d adds Sferruzza, whose top-of-mind cash flow priorities are not unlike those of other finance leaders whose businesses were pursuing steep growth trajectories. Meritage, for example, told industry analysts last November that they should expect the home builder to grow by 25 percent in 2020.

Meanwhile, more regular...