American billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway puts $595 million into homebuilder Lennar

American billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. spent about $595 million buying shares of Lennar Corp. over 11 trading days, building one of its largest bets on the US housing market as demand for new homes weakens.

Berkshire subsidiaries bought about 7.5 million Lennar shares between Sept. 17 and Oct. 2 at an average price of roughly $79, according to a series of filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The purchases left Berkshire with 28.4 million Class A shares and 568,028 Class B shares of Lennar, the second-largest homebuilder in the US.

That is about 12% of Lennar's 237.9 million shares outstanding. The stake was worth about $2.2 billion at Monday's close of $75.87, which means the shares bought during the recent run are now worth about $26 million less than Berkshire paid for them.

Buffett, 96, is named alongside Berkshire as a reporting person on each filing, as the company's controlling shareholder. He handed the chief executive role to Greg Abel on Jan. 1 and stepped down as chairman on Sept. 18, when his son Howard Buffett took over the board. He remains a director with the title of chairman emeritus.

A fast buildup

Berkshire held about 13.1 million Lennar shares at the end of June. Its stake crossed 10% in mid-September, a level that requires an investor to report trades within two business days rather than once a quarter. That rule is why the buying has been visible almost day by day.

The heaviest day came on Sept. 18, when Berkshire bought more than 1.2 million Class A shares at a weighted average of $76.39. It bought on six of the seven trading days from Sept. 17 to Sept. 25, spending close to $349 million. It added about $54 million in the last three days of September and another $192.6 million on Oct. 1 and Oct. 2.

An amended filing dated Oct. 7 showed Berkshire owned 12.5% of Lennar's Class A stock as of Sept. 30. The October purchases took that figure to about 13.7%. No further purchases have been reported since the Oct. 2 trades.

Buying into a slowdown

The bet comes as Lennar struggles with high borrowing costs and soft demand. The Miami-based builder said on Sept. 16 that net income fell to $284 million in its fiscal third quarter, which ended Aug. 31, from $591 million a year earlier. Deliveries fell 3% to 20,840 homes and new orders dropped 9% to 20,879. The average sale price was $372,000, and gross margin on home sales slipped to 15.8% from 17.5%.

Lennar cut its full-year delivery target to 80,000 to 81,000 homes from 82,000 to 83,000. Its shares have lost about a quarter of their value this year and are trading close to their 52-week low of $71.78.

Stuart Miller, Lennar's executive chairman and co-chief executive officer, has said affordability remains the main obstacle. "The buyer at median family income is stretching well past 30% of gross income to carry a home," he said.

The average 30-year US mortgage rate has climbed to 7.40%, according to Freddie Mac, the highest level since November 2023.

Berkshire's growing housing business

Lennar is the latest addition to a housing portfolio that Berkshire has been building for more than two decades. It bought Clayton Homes, the largest US maker of manufactured houses, in 2003 for about $1.7 billion.

In July, Berkshire completed its purchase of Taylor Morrison Home Corp. for $72.50 a share in cash, a deal with an equity value of about $6.8 billion and an enterprise value of about $8.5 billion. Taylor Morrison now sits alongside the 15 regional builders in Berkshire's Clayton Properties Group. Together, they delivered nearly 23,000 site-built homes in 2025 across 21 states, making the combined business the fourth-largest homebuilding operation in the US.