Housing construction folks in the US have been very, very happy lately, and D.R. Horton’s latest earnings show why. America’s largest homebuilder brought in nearly $3.1 billion in revenue last quarter, surpassing expectations and making for the best quarter since 2007.
That’s despite the fact it’s been much harder than before the financial crisis to get a mortgage. It also comes as a larger share of housing under construction these days is multi-family (apartments, condos, etc.), and not the single-family homes that D.R. Horton specializes in:
Some of this might be because the houses that are getting built these days tend to be bigger and more expensive (paywall). For instance, the average D.R. Horton-built house sold in 2007 went for $244,000. In 2005, near the height of the most recent housing boom, it was about $275,000. This quarter? Roughly $285,000.