(Disclosure: Rose Law Group represents Century Communities, D.R. Horton, Lennar, Meritage, and Taylor Morrison.)
By Vincent Salandro | Builder
Following a muted spring selling season, buyer hesitancy and economic uncertainty persisted into the fiscal second quarter for public home builders. Elevated interest rates and affordability concerns continued to weigh on demand. While the desire for homeownership remains strong, many prospective buyers are staying on the sidelines, waiting for conditions to improve.
As a result, incentives and price concessions became more common tools among public builders to achieve sales in the choppy and challenging market. D.R. Horton, the nation’s largest home builder, set the tone at the start of the earnings period, noting that sales incentives are expected to remain elevated in the coming months. Throughout the earnings period, other public builder executives shared similar messages with investors, highlighting the success—and cost—of incentives in the current landscape.
In contrast to prior quarters, when tariff uncertainty was a more prominent topic, it received less attention in the most recent earnings period. Instead, public builders emphasized improvements in cycle times and supply-side cost efficiencies as they work to algin housing starts with evolving market conditions.
