Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, with scale and consolidation as the major drivers, is helping rapidly reshape the home building landscape.
The change is visible in the Builder 100 rankings. Of the top 25 companies on the 2024 version of the Builder 100 list, five have been acquired by other builders in the top 25: Taylor Morrison (No. 7 in 2024), M.D.C. Holdings (No. 12), Tri Pointe Homes (No. 18), Rausch Coleman Homes (No. 21), and Beazer Homes (No. 23). A look further down the 2024 list includes a trio of builders that have also been acquired in the past two years: Landsea Homes (No. 42), Holiday Builders (No. 46), United Homes Group (No. 51).
The deals involving these companies represent a change of scale into much larger platforms. The recent deals have created several organizations with claims of top-15 companies in the sector.
Berkshire Hathaway’s combined platform with Taylor Morrison and Clayton Properties Group would include approximately 23,000 site-built homes and rank fourth on the Builder 100 list. After its acquisition of Tri Pointe Homes, Japanese company Sumitomo Forestry’s U.S. portfolio has approximately 18,000 annual closings, which would rank fifth on the Builder 100 list. The combined closings of Dream Finders Homes and Beazer Homes (13,000) following their merger would rank sixth; Daiwa House’s portfolio following acquisitions of United Homes Group and Holiday Builders represents approximately 10,000 closings, which would rank as the 12th largest company.
“What you’re seeing is companies with the lower cost of capital thrive,” Tony Avila, founder and CEO of Builder Advisor Group, tells BUILDER. “Berkshire Hathaway has a substantially lower cost of capital; Daiwa House, Sekisui House, Sumitomo Forestry, all have substantially lower costs of capital. Companies with the lower cost of capital are thriving right now and are utilizing that lower cost of capital to make acquisitions, and make accretive acquisitions at that, to get size and scale.”
Synergies and Integration
Berkshire Hathaway’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Taylor Morrision is one that best illustrates the changing M&A landscape.
In addition to Clayton’s robust platform of manufactured housing capabilities, Berkshire Hathaway has developed a substantial site-built portfolio through the acquisition of nearly a dozen companies, including Mungo Homes, Oakwood Homes, and Highland Homes. For Avila, though, there are not obvious synergies between manufactured housing and site-built housing.
“You can buy great companies, and they have,” Avila says. “These are all great operators. They continue to thrive and grow their businesses. But there’s really no synergies between the two.”
The Taylor Morrison acquisition, Avila says, could provide a path forward for greater integration among Berkshire’s site-built operations. The executive team at Taylor Morrison, including CEO Sheryl Palmer, have experience with integration from the initial merger of Taylor Woodrow with Morrison Homes to its multibillion dollar acquisitions of AV Homes and William Lyons Homes.
“Sheryl Palmer is an expert at integration. [Palmer], her leadership team, and everyone involved at Taylor Morrison has an incredible skill set at integration and putting these companies together,” Avila says. “That skill set was not lost on Berkshire Hathaway and I think you’ll see over time more synergies across the various site-built companies.”
Avila expects further acquisitions in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio as the site-built operations achieve greater synergies and scale further. Weeks after the Taylor Morrison deal was announced, site builder Mungo Homes, a member of Clayton Properties Group family of brands, acquired South Carolina-based McGuinn Homes, the No. 65 company on the 2026 Builder 100 list.
The Race for Scale
Against the current housing backdrop, organic growth remains challenged by a builder’s ability to combat affordability concerns for buyers. Many public builders have experienced pressure on orders and closings and scaled back projected starts to meet current market realities.
Strong balance sheets and cash positions, though, are providing well-capitalized builders the ability to either return capital to shareholders or allocate it toward an acquisition.
“You can de-leverage, allocate dollars to buy stock back or, maybe, buy someone else’s stock,” Avila says. “Right now, builders that have a fair amount of capital to put to work are thinking ‘how do I put that to work accretively?’”
For Dream Finders Homes, its decision to purchase Beazer Homes delivered both scale and the potential for operating leverage. The acquisition helps scale Dream Finders’ presence in the large Texas housing markets of Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio while adding a presence in Las Vegas, Sacramento, and southern California. Beazer’s west region, which includes operations in Texas, Las Vegas, California, and Phoenix, generated 59% of Beazer’s 896 closings during the three months between April and June.
“Dream Finders is picking up more size and scale in Texas, and also expanding into a few new markets,” Avila says. “Buy also just covering more overhead. You’re going to see nine figures of synergies in the deal. So that gives you more and can add more to the bottom line.”
Injection of Urgency
The growing number of buyers and multibillion dollar deals is creating another dynamic for M&A activity: urgency.
“This is the largest number of buyers I’ve ever had on our buyer list and we’re interacting with,” Avila says. “We’ve got investors in five continents looking at U.S. housing.”
While different buyers will have different priorities, a common desire in the current market is to enter new geographies and further diversify product offerings. Lennar’s purchase of Arkansas-based Rausch Coleman, Meritage Homes’ acquisition of Gulf Coast-based Elliott Homes, and Toll Brothers’ acquisition of Arkansas-based Buffington Homes are three recent examples of acquirers targeting expansion in strong secondary markets without significant national builder exposure.
Daiwa House-backed Stanley Martin Homes’ acquisitions of Holiday Builders and United Homes Group and Sumitomo Forestry’s acquisition of Tri Pointe Homes illustrate the ambitions of Japanese housing companies to fill out portfolios in historically strong housing markets in the Southeast and West, respectively, with established operators.
“If you’re a builder that’s growing with good margins in a unique market, where the market’s doing better than others, especially if you have a move-up product, there’s top demand right now,” Avila says.
The urgency to transact by buyers is reinforcing a sellers M&A market. With an increase in interested parties in any potential selling company, the result is high valuations, elevated sales prices, and stronger competition for each deal.
