Meritage Homes Partners With Operation Homefront to Award Homes to Veterans

SCOTTSDALE, AZ -- (Marketwired) -- 07/03/13 -- Meritage Homes Corporation (NYSE: MTH), a leading U.S. homebuilder, has teamed up with Operation Homefront, a leading national charity supporting families of service members and Wounded Warriors, to provide three mortgage-free Meritage homes to selected military families this year.

As part of Operation Homefront's "Homes on the Homefront" program, Meritage Homes plans to build and donate a home in each of the following three locations: Goodyear, Ariz., outside of Phoenix; Cary, N.C., outside of Raleigh; and Converse, Texas, outside of San Antonio. These homes will be delivered on Veteran's Day 2013, to veterans selected by Operation Homefront.

"I believe that America's military personnel are unmatched anywhere in the world, and I can't think of more deserving individuals for the unmatched quality and energy efficiency of a Meritage home," said Steve Hilton, Meritage's chairman and CEO. "We are thrilled to support our troops and their families in this way, and plan to offer additional assistance to our service men and women through Operation Homefront in each of our markets."

The Homes on the Homefront program began in 2012. In the program's first year, Operation Homefront awarded more than 100 mortgage-free homes to veterans and military families. Before this partnership, all homes awarded through this program were bank-owned properties.

"This partnership will expand our Homes on the Homefront program in a big way, since this is the first time we'll be providing brand new homes to veterans," said Amy Palmer, Operation Homefront's chief development officer. "These beautiful new homes will provide great opportunities for homeownership to some of our country's amazing military families. It is a tremendous feeling to be able to put a veteran and his or her family into a mortgage-free home, let alone three, and we are very excited to begin this partnership with Meritage Homes."

For more information about the program, or to apply for one of the homes, please visit www.OperationHomefront.net/HomesOnTheHomefront. The deadline for submissions is midnight August 3, 2013.

About Meritage Homes Corporation
Meritage Homes is the ninth-largest public homebuilder in the United States, based on 4,238 homes closed in 2012. Meritage builds and sells single-family homes for first-time, move-up, luxury and active adult buyers across the Western, Southern and Southeastern United States. As of March 31, 2013, the company had 168 actively selling communities in markets including Sacramento, San Francisco's East Bay, the Central Valley and Southern California; Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Austin and San Antonio, Texas; Phoenix/Scottsdale and Tucson, Arizona; Las Vegas, Nevada; Denver, Colorado; Orlando and Tampa, Florida; Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Meritage has designed and built more than 75,000 homes in its 27-year history, and has a reputation for its distinctive style, quality construction, and positive customer experience. Meritage is the industry leader in energy efficient homebuilding and in 2013, Meritage received the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year for Sustained Excellence Award, for its innovation and industry leadership in energy efficient homebuilding. Meritage was the first national homebuilder to be 100 percent ENERGY STAR® qualified in every home it builds, and far exceeds ENERGY STAR standards today.

For more information, visit meritagehomes.com.

About Operation Homefront:
A national nonprofit, Operation Homefront leads more than 4,500 volunteers with nationwide presence who provide emergency and other financial assistance to the families of service members and wounded warriors. Operation Homefront has met more than 750,000 needs of military families since its inception in 2002. A four-star rated charity by watchdog Charity Navigator, nationally 95 percent of total revenue donated to Operation Homefront goes directly to programs that provide support to our military families. For more information, go to www.OperationHomefront.net.