Builder magazine said D.R. Horton is America’s largest homebuilder, with 30,455 closings and $8.65 billion in revenue in 2014. The annual report was released Thursday.
The Fort Worth-based big builder has ranked among the Top 3 firms on the Builder 100 list every year since Builder magazine began it in 2004, according to the publication.
Miami-based Lennar at No. 2 closed 18,290 homes in 2014 and reported revenue of $7.78 billion, according to the magazine. No. 3 Pulte closed 17,196 homes and brought in $5.82 billion.
The top 10
1. D.R. Horton
2. Lennar Corp
3. Pulte Group
4. NVR
5. The Ryland Group
6. KB Home
7. Taylor Morrison
8. Hovnanian Enterprises
9. Meritage Homes
10. Toll Brothers
Thirteen builders made the list for the first time this year. The largest of the newcomers, ranking 54th, is Kolter Residential in West Palm Beach, FL, which closed 682 homes last year and claimed $332 million in revenue. And at No. 100, newcomer Great Southern Homes, headquartered in Columbia, SC, closed 386 homes and reported $71 million in revenue.
See the 2015 Builder 100 list here.
Who’s next?
The second tier of Builder’s list includes homebuilders ranked 101 to 200 based on closings. With 248 closings in 2014, Katy, TX-based Greeneco Builders topped the "Next 100" list. Coming in at 200th with 110 closings, is Gateway Homes of Texas.
Eighteen builders made the Next 100 list for the first time this year. Builder’s senior editor Jennifer Goodman explained that the magazine changed its criteria for the list this year to include firms with 110 or more closed units rather than 114 as was required in prior years.
Private matters
Most of the homebuilders on the Builder 100 list are large, publicly traded companies. But the list also includes a number of privately owned builders.
Topping that list is Houston-based David Weekley Homes, with 3,168 closings in 2014, and Walnut, CA-headquartered Shea Homes, with 2,728. Rounding out the Top 5 are The Villages of Lake Sumter in central Florida, which closed on 2,601 homes in 2014; Miami-based multifamily builder The Related Group, with 2,534; and Ashton Woods Homes in Roswell, GA, with 2,312.
How much, and where?
Sales and revenues among the country’s largest builders grew overall in 2014 to $85 billion nationwide, according to Builder.
South Atlantic building companies earned the most in 2014 — a collective $32.32 billion — while no New England builders made the Builder 100 or Next 100 lists — "one surprising find," according to associate editor Laura McNulty.
The South Atlantic’s highest-grossing building in 2014 was Lennar, which also ranked No. 1 on the overall list.
Big and green
Not only did homebuilders make more money in 2014, they got a bit greener.
The number of big builders who have sought green certifications or third-party verification of their homes’ eco-friendly materials climbed from 110 builders in 2012 to 149 in 2014, the magazine reported.
While a few more builders signed on with LEED for Homes and Energy Star to prove their sustainability chops, the number seeking validation from regional programs nearly doubled since 2012, the magazine said.
Kayla Devon, an assistant editor with the residential construction group of Hanley Wood, which publishes Builder and a number of other construction titles for professional builders, attributed the increased interest in green certifications to climate change, droughts and fuel prices.
"Green building has never been as important as it is today," she wrote. "Home builders are reacting to consumers’ desire to go green."
The greenest builder among the Builder 100 companies is Fulton Homes Corp., which earned certifications for all of the 376 homes it built last year, the magazine reported.
"If this data is telling," Devon wrote, "green building won’t be slowing down any time soon."