Homebuilders were already contending with softer demand and high mortgage rates. Now they are bumping up against a more aggressive resale market, with sellers trimming prices and chasing the same customers. Lennar singled out Florida and Texas as the fiercest battlegrounds.
For years, owners with ultra-low-rate mortgages kept listings scarce, which gave new construction an edge. That edge is fading. "Over the past years, the resale market has been on the sidelines," Miller said. "It has just been disengaged because the differential interest rates were so big, that the need to move up, to move on, to move out, to make change has been postponed for long enough to where that resale market is starting to negotiate now."
Builders, Lennar included, have leaned on discounted financing and other perks to keep sales moving as borrowing costs climbed, a strategy that boosts traffic but squeezes margins. Lennar focuses on affordable homes aimed at buyers who feel every uptick in mortgage rates, which now stand at levels not seen in more than a year. Executives said that nearly half of the people visiting its sales offices can't immediately qualify to buy a home, making price competition and incentives even more pivotal. The company noted those incentives have grown more expensive but remain essential to close deals.
Lennar missed estimates across the majority of homebuilding metrics for the quarter that ran through August, and it also trimmed its home-deliveries outlook for the full fiscal year. The stock was little changed at $78.45 at 1 p.m. in New York on Thursday and at $78.28 at 2:09 p.m. Since the year began, shares are down nearly 24%, placing them next-to-last among homebuilder stocks included in S&P indexes.
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It has been a choppy year for builders, with consumer uncertainty tied to the war in Iran, immigration enforcement, and a wave of data center projects drawing workers away from home construction. Lennar's choice to prioritize volume even if it trims profitability has contributed to pressure, and margins have fallen since it spun off its land operations last year. As Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Drew Reading put it, "Base-price cuts, elevated incentives along with higher land-costs, including land banking fees have brought their margins down significantly."
On the resale side, sellers are bargaining more. In August, over 80% of properties in West Palm Beach, Miami, Austin and San Antonio sold for below their initial list prices, according to Redfin, intensifying pricing pressure in two of Lennar's biggest markets.
If you track housing as a read on the economy, watch how builders juggle price cuts, incentives, and volumes while mortgage rates stay elevated. When existing homes undercut new builds on price, margins get thinner, which can show up in earnings across the sector. For everyday investors, it is another reminder that housing momentum is uneven, especially in Florida and Texas where resale sellers are cutting deals to move inventory.
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