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Warren Buffett has bought, sold, bought again, and sold again homebuilder stocks multiple times over the past two years as he navigates one of housing’s most unique cycles

Back in his 1996 letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett famously wrote that: “If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes.”

That statement only makes the recent homebuilder stock purchases and sales by Berkshire Hathaway—led by Buffett, who will step down as CEO at the end of 2025—even more eyebrow-raising.

Here’s the timeline…

August 2023 —> Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that in Q2 2023 the company made a bet on U.S. homebuilders and bought 5,969,714 shares of D.R. Horton, 152,572 shares of Lennar, and 11,112 shares of NVR.

February 2024 —> Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that in Q4 2023 that the company had sold off 5,969,714 shares of D.R. Horton—the vast majority of Buffett’s big homebuilder bet he made early in 2023.

August 2025 —> Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that during Q2 2025 (the three months ending June 30), the company made a bet on U.S. homebuilders by purchasing around 1.5 million shares of D.R. Horton (valued at around $191.5 million). In the first half of 2025, Berkshire Hathaway acquired just over 7 million shares of Lennar, valued at nearly $800 million.

November 2025 —> Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that it has sold its D.R. Horton stake of around 1.5 million shares

While Berkshire Hathaway has sold off its shares of D.R. Horton (No. 123 on the Fortune 500), it still owns around 7.2 million shares of Lennar (No. 129 on the Fortune 500) and around 11,112 shares of NVR (No. 396 on the Fortune 500), according to ResiClub’s review of Berkshire Hathaway’s latest SEC filings.

Given Buffet’s own advice (“If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes”), it’s probably fair to avoid drawing sweeping long-term housing market conclusions from Berkshire Hathaway’s homebuilder stock trades over the past two years. After all, the firm bought them, sold them, bought them again, and sold them four times in just over a two-year window.

That said, if you forced me to speculate, I’d guess Berkshire Hathaway initially eyed homebuilder stocks in the first half of 2023 after their sharp pullback in 2022 as builders adjusted to the rate shock. But heading into 2024, Berkshire Hathaway may have gotten cold feet on homebuilders as a long hold as it became clear that the housing market’s early-2023 firming was a bit of a head fake—and that a bigger power shift toward buyers, further housing-market softening, and additional homebuilder margin compression were still ahead. After that played out, earlier this year Berkshire Hathaway may have concluded that most of that margin compression had already been priced in and that it wanted back in on homebuilders.

That speculation does leave one remaining question: Why would Berkshire Hathaway now selloff D.R. Horton while still holding onto Lennar and NVR.

First, D.R. Horton’s stock has had a stronger bounce back over the past few months, while Lennar and NVR have not (perhaps Berkshire Hathaway believes that bounce back still awaits). So it might not be that D.R. Horton has fallen out of favor with Berkshire Hathaway, but instead simply that D.R. Horton’s stock has already priced in much of its short-term upside.

Second—and this is me reading deep between the lines—perhaps Berkshire Hathaway likes that Lennar has been more aggressive during this soft window in taking market share. While all the public homebuilders that ResiClub tracks have compressed profit margins over the past three years to offer larger incentives and affordability adjustments in an attempt to avoid a sharper pullback in housing starts, Lennar has been the most aggressive on that front. In fact, Lennar has compressed its margins all the way back to 2009 levels and is spending the equivalent of roughly 14.3% percent of final sales on incentives (compared to the typical 5% to 6% in normal times) in order to grow home sales and capture market share.

In September 2025, Lennar executives acknowledged that it’s finally “time to pause [that strategy] and let the market catch up a little bit.” That doesn’t mean they’re completely reversing course or losing the market share they’ve recently gained while using the strategy. Instead, it means they can’t be as aggressive in early 2026 in pursuing additional market share given how much margin compression they’ve already absorbed. Some investors, including Berkshire Hathaway, might like that Lennar has pursued bigger market share through this choppy stretch and is now starting to defend margins.

In addition to the Lennar and NVR homebuilder shares Berkshire Hathaway still owns, the firm also fully owns Clayton Homes—the largest U.S. builder of manufactured and modular homes—and HomeServices of America, a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate (under Berkshire Hathaway Energy) that offers a wide range of real estate services, including brokerage, mortgage origination, and title and escrow.

Are you a real estate agent?

If yes, you’re invited to take our Q4 2025 Zoodealio-ResiClub Real Estate Agent Survey here.