It turns out large U.S. home builders have been pretty resilient in the face of persistent challenges in the U.S. housing market, including a turbulent mortgage market characterized by several rate spikes. Recent insight from housing market data platform ResiClub shows that the nation’s 10 largest publicly traded home builders together recorded 77,255 new homes during Q1 2024. That's an increase of more than 18% compared with the same period last year when there were 65,376 new homes recorded. And that scenario appears to be continuing in 2024.
Of the home builders tracked by ResiClub, D.R. Horton had the largest share of new homes, followed by Lennar and Pulte Group.
The total for Q1 2024 is only -7% lower than Q1 2021 when these 10 builders had a combined 82,795 net new orders. Not too shabby, considering that Q1 2021 was one of the hottest quarters during the Pandemic Housing Boom.
Big builders were able to absorb the mortgage rate shock, offer affordability adjustments like mortgage rate buydowns and outright price cuts in some markets, and still maintain profit levels that exceed pre-pandemic norms.
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