What earnings for America’s largest homebuilder reveal about the housing market

Deploying bigger incentives and slowing starts, D.R. Horton was able to shrink its count of unsold completed homes by 35%.

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During the pandemic housing boom, homebuilders saw their number of unsold completed new builds dry up as overheated demand quickly absorbed almost everything for sale. That is exactly what was experienced by D.R. Horton, America’s largest homebuilder, which had just 600 unsold completed new builds for sale in fiscal Q2 2022—compared to 4,700 in its fiscal Q2 2020. 

However, as the pandemic housing boom ended and the market shifted, U.S. homebuilders saw their unsold new builds spike back up. At the end of its fiscal Q2 2025—the three months ending March 31—D.R. Horton had 8,400 unsold completed.

Fast-forward to fiscal Q2 2026, and D.R. Horton has shrunk its unsold completed inventory to 5,500 as it’s worked to move unsold inventory and balance sales pace with current “market conditions.” This matters because unsold completed homes are a drag on margins: The longer a finished home sits, the higher the carrying costs, and the more the company may need to discount it to move it.

“Unsold homes are down 25% from December and 35% from a year ago, with both unsold homes as a percentage of total inventory and completed unsold inventory at their lowest levels since fiscal 2023 for homes closed in the second quarter,” CEO Paul Romanowski said during D.R. Horton’s April 21 earnings call. “We expect starts in the third quarter to be lower than the second quarter, and we will continue to manage our inventory levels and start space based on market conditions.”

How was D.R. Horton able to achieve this drawdown in unsold completed inventory? 

Given the increased softness last year across many pockets of core homebuilding markets in the Sunbelt—in particular in pockets of Florida and Texas—D.R. Horton slowed its spec starts heading into 2026. That has helped it reduce the number of unsold completed builds on its books. 

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