D.R. Horton Retains Top Spot on BUILDER 100

D.R. Horton managed to hold onto its position as the largest home builder in America in 2010, despite a hard challenge from PulteGroup, which absorbed Centex in 2009, becoming the largest builder in America for a time, at least on paper. Ft. Worth, Texas-based Horton closed 18,983 homes during the 2010 calendar year, nearly 2,000 more than second-place PulteGroup (17,095). Because Pulte builds bigger homes than Horton on average, the Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based company actually booked more revenue than Horton last year, $4.57 billion, compared to Horton's $4.06 billion. Builder magazine each year ranks the top 100 builders, and the next 100, in the United States based on calendar-year closings. The full results won't be released until May 11th. But several top-level results, including the top 10 builders contained in this story, will be released during the next two weeks. Pulte certainly had a leg up in this competition, given its Centex acquisition in 2009. In calendar year 2008, for instance, Pulte and Centex combined to deliver more than 39,000 homes, compared to Horton's 24,000. But Horton refused to give up its leadership position easily, building many homes on spec during 2010 and eagerly optioning lots. 2010 was the first year of head-to-head competition on the leaderboard between Pulte and Horton. Because Pulte's acquisition of Centex occured during the middle of 2009, many of Centex's closings were listed separately on Builder's list of 2009 closings. Had closings for the two companies been combined, however, Pulte (with 15,013 closings in 2009) and Centex (at 6,900) would have easily surpassed Horton (with 18,164). Horton and Pulte put some distance between themselves and other top 10 companies during 2010. Third-place Lennar Corp., based in Miami, closed 10,955 homes during calendar year 2010, and fourth-place NVR, based in Reston, Va., sold 10,030 homes. The revenue of each of the top four home builders is now nearly double the revenue of the next closest home builder, No. 5 Los Angeles-based KB Home, which closed 7,346 homes with $1.59 billion in revenue.

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