DHI · Earnings call · 2026Q3T · Full report
Affordable Home Products
HORTON D R INC /DE/ · 2026-10-29 · Importance 65 · Surprise 82
D.R. Horton is adjusting home designs community by community, including offering smaller homes and smaller lots to reach lower price points and monthly payments. Average home square footage declined 4% over five years, while attached closings—predominantly duplexes and townhomes—rose to roughly 16% of the mix from 10% a year earlier. Management said it expects to build more smaller homes in the current environment to support homeownership affordability.
Key facts
- D.R. Horton reduced its average home square footage 4% over the last five years, and attached homes, predominantly duplexes and townhomes, rose to roughly 16% of its mix from 10% a year earlier.
- D.R. Horton expects to build more smaller homes in the current environment because they achieve monthly payments that open homeownership.
- D.R. Horton aims to build homes that buyers can afford at a return acceptable to the company.
- D.R. Horton identifies local resistance to smaller lots and smaller homes as a major affordability obstacle, and says jurisdictional restrictions create costs that do not add value.
- D.R. Horton's homebuyers who closed had a FICO score of 720 and cumulative loan-to-value of roughly 90%.
- D.R. Horton provided homeownership to more than 84,000 individuals and families in fiscal 2026, including approximately 43,500 first-time homebuyers.
- Sixty-three percent of D.R. Horton homes financed by its mortgage company in the fourth quarter were purchased by first-time homebuyers.
- D.R. Horton's fourth-quarter average closing price was approximately $135,000, or 27%, below the average price of a new home in the United States.