Homebuilding

Berkshire Hathaway has lifted its stake in Lennar Corporation above 11% of the company, a position worth roughly $2.2 billion, as the homebuilder trades below its own book value. Lennar traded at around $77 on October 6, up 3.77% on the day and 39.05% lower over twelve months, against a book value of $90.68 a share, or 0.85 times book. The company's balance sheet is mostly land and finished houses carried at what Lennar paid, and a current ratio of 10.13 and debt-to-equity of 28.20% give it room to hold that inventory rather than sell it cheaply. The income statement is why the stock sits where it does: revenue fell 8.70% in the most recent quarter and earnings fell 52.00%, leaving a net margin of 4.09%, while 10.24% of the float is sold short. Lennar is worth $18.38 billion, trades at 15.06 times trailing earnings and 14.72 times forward earnings, and carries $6.12 billion of debt, with enterprise value to EBITDA of 11.48.

LGI Homes reported a 9.0% increase in September home closings, with 386 homes closed compared to 354 a year earlier. For the third quarter of 2026, home closings totaled 1,222 units, a 10.4% year-over-year rise from 1,107 homes in the prior-year period. The September total included 8 single-family rental homes, while the third-quarter figure included 33 single-family rental homes. As of September 30, 2026, the company operated 151 active selling communities. LGI Homes plans to release its full third-quarter 2026 financial results before the market opens on Tuesday, November 3, 2026.

Lennar Corporation declared a quarterly cash dividend of US$0.50 per share for both Class A and Class B stock, payable on October 22, 2026. Earlier in 2026 the company introduced Venue at Leaf Creek, an active adult community in Douglassville, Pennsylvania, featuring more than 300 homes and resort-style amenities. The launch reflects Lennar's push into lifestyle-oriented, amenity-rich communities aimed at active adult buyers in a scenic yet well-connected location. The maintained dividend signals continued capital returns even as earnings and margins have softened this year, while the company's narrative projects $40.8 billion in revenue and $2.7 billion in earnings by 2029, requiring 8.5% yearly revenue growth and about a $1.4 billion earnings increase from $1.3 billion today. Some of the most optimistic analysts expected Lennar's revenue to reach about US$40.6 billion and earnings US$2.5 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway bought $53.9 million of Lennar shares in the last three days of September, lifting its stake in the U.S. homebuilder to roughly 11%, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday. From Sept. 28 through Sept. 30, the conglomerate acquired 656,302 class A common shares and 4,108 class B common shares, bringing its total holdings to 26.0 million class A shares and 553,000 class B shares, a position valued at about $2.16 billion. That roughly 11% stake sits just under Vanguard's 11.2% holding, Bloomberg News reported. The buying follows Berkshire's $6.8 billion acquisition of Taylor Morrison Homes in July and adds to its ownership of Clayton Homes, a smaller investment in NVR and a sprawling real estate brokerage business. Berkshire, now run by CEO Greg Abel and overseen by Chairman Howard Buffett, is piling into real estate as climbing mortgage rates pressure the sector; Lennar shares have dropped 22% and the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF has dipped 12% year to date, lagging the S&P 500's 12% gain.

Berkshire Hathaway has increased its stake in major U.S. homebuilder Lennar, raising its holding to 10.9%. According to filings submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Berkshire acquired about $212.4 million worth of shares over the three trading days from September 17 to 21, and about $136.4 million worth over the three trading days from September 23 to 25, bringing its holdings as of September 25 to 25.9 million shares valued at roughly $2.1 billion. That marks a 93% increase from the 13.4 million shares it held as of June 30, nearly doubling its stake in the second-largest homebuilder in the United States. The purchases began the day after Lennar announced its third-quarter 2026 results on September 16. In those results, revenue fell 8.6% year over year to $8.05 billion, while net income of $284 million was roughly half the $591 million reported a year earlier; new orders dropped about 9%, deliveries fell 3%, and the gross margin on home sales declined to 15.8% from 17.5%. Behind the weakness is rising U.S. mortgage rates, with the average 30-year fixed rate in the third week of September, as published by the Mortgage Bankers Association, at 7.12%, the highest level in about two years since May 2024.

In its interim results for the fiscal year ending January 2027, announced on September 10, Sekisui House revealed that its rental housing management business posted the largest segment operating profit at 41.745 billion yen, generating more than 20 percent of consolidated operating profit and establishing itself as a core business. Interim consolidated results showed revenue of 1.965644 trillion yen, down 2.5 percent year on year, while operating profit rose 16.0 percent to 180.37 billion yen, ordinary profit climbed 23.8 percent to 169.081 billion yen, and interim net profit increased 23.1 percent to 125.053 billion yen, securing double-digit profit growth. The bulk of the 24.8 billion yen increase in profit came from a 22.2 billion yen gain in the urban redevelopment business, where the sale of six properties, including assets sold to Sekisui House REIT Investment Corporation, drove segment operating profit up 437.7 percent year on year to 27.352 billion yen. Meanwhile, the rental housing management business saw revenue rise just 2.9 percent to 368.016 billion yen, but its operating profit margin improved from 10.3 percent to 11.3 percent, exceeding the detached housing business's operating profit of 23.99 billion yen by 1.7 times. The international business, following the acquisition of M.D.C. Holdings in the United States, fell sharply, with revenue down 20.8 percent to 486.353 billion yen and operating profit down 93.2 percent to 1.036 billion yen, which the company attributed to customers taking a wait-and-see approach amid uncertainty over the U.S. economic outlook and the impact of incentives. For the full year, the company lowered its revenue forecast to 4.26 trillion yen from 4.353 trillion yen, while raising its ordinary profit forecast to 316 billion yen from 314 billion yen and its net profit forecast to 224 billion yen from 218 billion yen, and it plans an annual dividend of 145 yen, comprising an interim dividend of 72 yen and a year-end dividend of 73 yen.

Lennar has opened three new residential communities across Pennsylvania, Alabama and California. In Hatfield, Pennsylvania, the builder launched Venue at Leaf Creek, an active adult community with amenities tailored to buyers aged 55 and over. Near Huntsville, Alabama, Lennar introduced Cherokee Bend, offering new single family homes across multiple floor plans. In San Juan Capistrano, California, the company launched The Farm, a residential project adding more new construction options in the state. The three launches target different price points and life stages, fitting Lennar's asset-light, volume-focused model of keeping sales flowing across a wide mix of communities even when conditions are tougher.

Open House Group's cumulative results for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending September 2026 came in at 1.0234 trillion yen in revenue, 120.9 billion yen in operating profit, 116 billion yen in ordinary profit, and 81.2 billion yen in net profit. Progress against the full-year forecast stands at 68.2 percent for revenue, 67.2 percent for operating profit, and 68.6 percent for net profit, all below the 75 percent level typically seen as the benchmark at the third quarter. The full-year operating profit forecast has been raised from 170 billion yen at the start of the year to 174.5 billion yen in the first quarter and 178.2 billion yen at the half, and now to 180 billion yen at the third quarter, up 23.3 percent year on year. The dividend per share forecast has also been increased in stages, from 188 yen to 200 yen and then 205 yen, and is expected to exceed the 178 yen paid in the previous fiscal year. By segment, the detached housing business posted 563 billion yen in revenue and 61.8 billion yen in operating profit, accounting for more than half of consolidated revenue, while the condominium business saw revenue more than double year on year to 42.4 billion yen, with an operating margin of 17.8 percent, the highest of any segment. Meanwhile, the share price has fallen more than 30 percent from the 11,500 yen level at the end of February to the 7,500 yen range as of September 2026, back near last autumn's level, moving in the opposite direction from the upward revision.

Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that it bought about 2.74 million more Lennar shares, pushing its stake in the homebuilder past the 10% ownership threshold. The filing records roughly 2.67 million Class A shares and 75,021 Class B shares purchased across September 17, 18 and 21, at a disclosed weighted-average cost estimated at $212.4 million. That brings Berkshire's holdings to 23.72 million Class A shares and 528,217 Class B shares. The purchase amounts to just 0.03% of Berkshire's market value, too small to move the needle for the conglomerate, but crossing 10% raises its reporting visibility and signals confidence in Lennar after weaker earnings. Berkshire shares stayed flat at $507.01 as of 11.27am ET on Thursday, about 5.79% above the GuruFocus GF Value of $479.25.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store posted a positive earnings surprise of 395% in its fiscal Q4 report, sending shares up 6.8% in early trading and adding to a 79% gain year to date. General Mills beat expectations on both top and bottom lines, with earnings of $0.75 per share topping the Zacks consensus by 3 cents on revenues of $4.39 billion, 1.04% above estimates, though its shares traded flat and remain down 23.8% in 2026. KB Home surpassed forecasts with earnings of $1.05 per share on $1.3 billion in revenues, ahead of expectations for $0.88 per share and $1.29 billion in sales, but shares fell 3% as the homebuilder warned of headwinds in the present quarter including higher mortgage rates. Pre-market indices slipped, with the Dow down 174 points, the Nasdaq down 94, the S&P 500 down 11 and the Russell 2000 down 17, while WTI crude sat at $90 per barrel and Brent at $100 per barrel and the 10-year yield held at 4.99%. Fed Governor Michael Barr is set to speak on housing affordability at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and flash S&P Manufacturing and Services PMI for September are due after the open, with Manufacturing expected at 53.5 and Services at 55.7.

IonQ said it tested the industry's first real-time quantum error decoder, sending its shares up 12% in premarket trading and lifting the broader quantum sector, with Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum each up more than 5.5% and Infleqtion rising a similar amount. Worthington Enterprises surged about 16% after first-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue surpassed Street estimates, with CEO Joseph Hayek citing rapidly growing demand for the company's engineered American Society of Mechanical Engineers tanks used in liquid cooling systems for data centers. KB Home fell more than 1% after projecting fourth-quarter deliveries below expectations and housing gross margins of 16% to 16.6%, short of the 17.2% analysts polled by LSEG sought. Six Flags Entertainment rose 1% after a Wall Street Journal report that activist hedge fund Jana Partners was encouraging the company to explore a sale, following the fund's disappointment with Six Flags' second-quarter earnings report. Maplebear, the Instacart owner, gained more than 3% after announcing that customers on its grocery platform can use Meta's personal AI agent Muse, joining OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini as AI partners.

Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a $212.38 million purchase of Lennar shares, expanding its existing $1.2 billion position in the homebuilder and sending the stock up 6% in the afternoon session. The investment was revealed under mandatory Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure rules, which require any investor owning more than 10% of a company's stock to formally report purchases and changes to their holdings. Lennar shares are somewhat volatile and have had 10 moves greater than 5% over the last year, and the market treated this news as meaningful but not fundamentally perception-changing. The stock is down 20.1% since the start of the year and, at $83.30 per share, trades 37.4% below its 52-week high of $133.13 from December 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Lennar shares five years ago would now have only $849.49.

KB Home posted stronger-than-expected fiscal Q3 earnings and in-line revenue, sending its stock up 1.7% in Tuesday after-hours trading. The U.S. homebuilder reported GAAP EPS of $1.05, topping the average analyst estimate of $0.90 but down from $1.61 a year ago, on revenue of $1.30B for the quarter ended Aug. 31, 2026, which matched consensus and fell from $1.62B in Q3 2025. Housing revenue of $1.29B, matching the Visible Alpha estimate, shrank from $1.61B a year ago, while Q3 housing gross profit margin improved to 16.5% from 15.2% in Q2 as built-to-order homes reached almost three-quarters of deliveries, meeting the company's goal of becoming a predominantly built-to-order business. The company reaffirmed 2026 delivery guidance of 10.5K-11.0K homes and narrowed its 2026 housing revenue outlook to $4.90B-$5.10B from a prior $4.90B-$5.30B, and guided Q4 deliveries of 3.0K-3.5K and housing revenue of $1.45B-$1.65B. Net orders fell 12% year over year to 2,604 and missed the Visible Alpha estimate of 2,856, while the cancellation rate rose to 18% from 17% a year ago; Executive Chairman Jeffrey Mezger said the housing market continues to be challenging, with higher mortgage rates pressuring affordability.

Berkshire Hathaway disclosed another $212.4 million purchase of Lennar shares, deepening a housing-sector bet that now sits against a much tougher operating backdrop. According to an SEC Form 4, Berkshire bought more than 2.7 million Lennar Class A and Class B shares between September 17 and September 21 at weighted-average prices ranging from $74.80 to $79.41, through its insurance subsidiaries. Berkshire already owns more than 10% of Lennar, with an existing stake worth roughly $1.2 billion, and the move fits a broader housing push that includes its ownership of D.R. Horton and its completed $6.8 billion acquisition of Taylor Morrison in July. The buying comes as Lennar's fiscal third-quarter earnings fell to $1.19 per share from $2.29 a year earlier and missed the $1.28 consensus estimate, while revenue dropped 8.6% to $8.05 billion. New orders declined 9% to 20,879 homes, deliveries slipped 3% to 20,840, gross margin fell to 15.8% from 17.5%, and management cut its 2026 delivery outlook to 80,000-81,000 homes from 82,000-83,000.

Berkshire Hathaway has increased its stake in homebuilder Lennar, sending the company's shares 4.44% higher to $81.55 in morning trading on Tuesday. An SEC filing showed that Berkshire, already a 10% owner of Lennar, acquired roughly 2.74 million class A and B shares in multiple transactions at prices ranging from $74.49 to $79.79. Following the purchases, Berkshire holds approximately 23.72 million class A shares and 528,217 class B shares, both of indirect ownership. The move comes after Warren Buffett, who led Berkshire Hathaway for 61 years, stepped down as chairman.

Barratt Redrow reported fiscal 2026 revenue of more than GBP6 billion, driven by higher home completions and a higher average selling price, with adjusted operating profit of GBP598.1 million slightly ahead of last year. Home completions rose 5% to 17,667, while adjusted profit before tax fell to GBP572.8 million on higher net interest costs and lower joint venture profits, and adjusted gross margin slipped to 15.3% with adjusted gross profit of GBP926.6 million. The company confirmed all GBP100 million of Redrow cost synergies in the second half, delivering a GBP73 million profit and loss benefit in FY26 and an expected annual contribution of approximately GBP95 million in FY27. Barratt Redrow ended the year with a net surplus position of GBP61.4 million, versus net indebtedness of GBP37 million a year earlier, and guided to FY27 completions of between 17,500 and 17,900, a year-end cash position of GBP400 million to GBP500 million, and a total capital return of GBP400 million including a GBP386 million share buyback plus an additional buyback of at least GBP100 million. Build cost inflation was 2% underlying for the year and is guided at 3% to 4% for the year ahead, while the land bank stands at 5.2 years of supply and the embedded gross margin fell 160 basis points to 17.3% from 18.9% at the end of December.