伯克希尔哈撒韦公司（Berkshire Hathaway Inc.）已积累了价值22亿美元的莱纳房屋公司（Lennar Corp.）股份，这使得这家企业集团有望超越先锋集团（Vanguard Group Inc.），成为该房屋建筑商的最大股东。
Hathaway Inc. has amassed a $2.2 billion stake in Lennar Corp., putting the conglomerate in position to overtake Vanguard Group Inc. as the homebuilder’s largest shareholder.
根据一份监管文件显示，伯克希尔在9月的最后三天购入了价值5390万美元的莱纳房屋公司股票。目前，该公司持有这家房屋建筑商11%的股份，仅略低于先锋集团11.2%的持股比例。
Berkshire bought $53.9 million worth of Lennar shares in the last three days of September, according to a regulatory filing. The firm now owns 11% of the homebuilder, narrowly behind Vanguard’s 11.2%.
9月份的这波买入潮是首席执行官格雷格·阿贝尔（Greg Abel）对陷入困境的美国房地产市场持乐观态度的最新迹象。在今年7月以68亿美元收购泰勒莫里森房屋公司（Taylor Morrison Home Corp.）后，伯克希尔已成为美国最大的房屋建筑商之一。
The September buying spree is the latest sign of Chief Executive Officer Greg Abel’s optimism about the beleaguered US housing market. Berkshire is already one of the biggest US homebuilders after its July acquisition of Taylor Morrison Home Corp. for $6.8 billion.
连同克莱顿房屋公司（Clayton Homes Inc.）以及对NVR公司（NVR Inc.）的少量投资，伯克希尔的住房投资组合现已涵盖从工厂预制房屋、建筑材料到房地产经纪和公用事业等多个领域。
Along with Clayton Homes Inc. and a smaller investment in NVR Inc., Berkshire’s housing portfolio now stretches from factory-built houses and building materials to real estate brokerages and utilities.
伯克希尔未回应置评请求，莱纳房屋公司也拒绝置评。但在9月初这波买入潮开始前不久，阿贝尔曾在CNBC节目中谈及他对房地产市场的看法。
Berkshire didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Lennar declined. But Abel discussed his view on the housing market on CNBC in early September shortly before the buying binge began.
“我们预计该行业不会出现快速复苏，”阿贝尔表示，“但我们确实认为这是一个我们绝对想要投资的行业，而且我们是进行长期投资。”与其它房屋建筑商一样，莱纳房屋公司一直受到通货膨胀和利率上升的冲击。建筑材料和劳动力成本的上涨，反映了特朗普政府的关税政策、伊朗战争以及移民政策的综合影响。本周抵押贷款利率达到7.3%，接近三年来的高点。
“We don’t envision a quick recovery there,” Abel said. “But we do see it as an industry that we definitely want to be invested in, and we’re invested for the long-term.”Lennar, like other homebuilders, has been battered by inflation and rising interest rates. The costs of construction materials and labor are up, reflecting the combined effects of the Trump administration’s tariffs, war in Iran, and immigration policy. Mortgage rates hit 7.3% this week, close to a three-year high.
这些动态正在全面挤压该行业：标普综合1500房屋建筑指数（S&P Composite 1500 Homebuilding index）今年以来已下跌7.9%。然而，莱纳房屋公司的表现是该基准指数中最差的股票之一，年初至今已下跌21%。
Those dynamics are squeezing the industry across the board: The S&P Composite 1500 Homebuilding index is down 7.9% year-to-date. Lennar, though, has been one of the benchmark’s worst performers, falling 21% from the beginning of the year.
该公司的困境源于其做出的战略决策：停止购买未开发的土地。这一决策符合行业趋势，旨在降低在土地具备建设条件之前长期持有土地所带来的风险。2025年初，该公司经过多年的努力，将价值55亿美元的资产剥离出来，成立了名为 Millrose Properties 的新上市公司。
The company’s struggles stem from its strategic decision to stop buying undeveloped parcels of land, in line with industry trends to reduce the risks associated with owning land long before it’s buildable. In early 2025, the company completed a years-long effort to spin off $5.5 billion worth of land into a new publicly traded company called Millrose Properties.
这种策略被称为“减少土地持有量”（“going land-light”），最初由 NVR 公司在20世纪90年代末提出，随后在金融危机后也被 D.R. Horton Inc. 等其他房地产企业采纳。标准普尔全球评级公司（S&P Global Ratings）的分析师莫里斯·奥斯汀（Maurice Austin）表示：“Lennar 公司此举的目的是为了分散其土地投资风险；如果市场再次崩溃，他们的资产负债表上就不会再持有这些土地了。”
That strategy is known as “going land-light,” pioneered by NVR in the late 1990s and adopted by D.R. Horton Inc. and others after the financial crisis. “It’s a matter of Lennar trying to diversify their land risk,” said Maurice Austin, a director and credit analyst at S&P Global Ratings who covers Millrose. “If there’s another market crash, they won’t have that land on the balance sheet.”
不过 Lennar 的做法更为极端——他们仅保留了自身土地总量的2.5%，而 D.R. Horton 仍持有22%的土地。同时，Lennar 还同意按照严格的预定时间表从 Millrose Properties 购买土地。由于市场需求持续低迷，Lennar 不得不面临两个选择：要么建造那些只能折价出售的房屋，要么向 Millrose Properties 支付费用以放弃这些土地——而这种做法可能会对公司的整体投资组合产生负面影响。
But Lennar went further, keeping less than 2.5% of its land, compared with 22% at D.R. Horton. At the same time, Lennar also agreed to take lots from Millrose on a stringent predetermined schedule. Given the slump in demand, Lennar has had to choose between building homes that it can only sell at a discount, or paying Millrose a fee to walk away — a move that could hurt the rest of the portfolio.
一些分析师质疑 Lennar 是否真的消除了投资风险。据雷蒙德·詹姆斯（Raymond James）公司的股票分析师巴克·霍恩（Buck Horne）指出，这种资产剥离方式实际上只是用一种复杂且成本高昂的第三方融资结构取代了传统的土地持有模式。
Some analysts question whether Lennar truly eliminated risk. The spinoff replaced traditional land ownership with a rigid, costly third-party financing structure, according to Raymond James equity analyst Buck Horne.
霍恩表示：“业界长期以来一直在讨论这个问题。这也是 Lennar 与同行们分道扬镳的原因——他们陷入了过于复杂的财务结构中。”尽管华尔街对此表示失望，但这一策略似乎得到了白宫的支持。大约一年前，唐纳德·特朗普总统曾严厉批评美国最大的房地产开发商们，指责他们囤积土地、故意限制房屋供应，导致房价居高不下。
“The street has been wrestling with this over time,” Horne said. “It’s why Lennar has decoupled from its peers — it’s the complexity of what they’ve entangled themselves with.”Despite Wall Street’s disappointment, the strategy seemed to find support in the White House. Roughly a year ago, President Donald Trump let loose on the nation’s largest builders, blaming them for high home prices. He accused them of sitting on land and deliberately withholding supply.
“他们必须开始建造房屋，”他在“真实社交”（Truth Social）平台上写道。这一批评反而让莱纳房屋公司（Lennar）看起来像个优等生：该公司今年几乎一直在做这件事，通过提供大量激励措施、降低价格并牺牲利润率来劝说那些犹豫不决的买家。
“They have to start building Homes,” he wrote on Truth Social. The criticism made Lennar look like a star student: The company had spent the year doing almost exactly that, offering significant incentives, lowering prices and sacrificing profit margin to persuade reluctant buyers.
莱纳房屋公司首席执行官斯图尔特·米勒（Stuart Miller）将特朗普的言论视为政府准备采取行动帮助购房者的信号。对于莱纳而言，这种前景比对许多竞争对手更为重要。通过降低借贷成本、出台联邦政策或两者兼施，若能显著改善住房负担能力，将使该公司有可能在不牺牲过多利润率的情况下填补其生产线。
Lennar Chief Executive Officer Stuart Miller took Trump’s rhetoric as a signal that the government was ready to take action to help homebuyers. For Lennar, the prospect mattered more than it did for many of its rivals. A meaningful improvement in affordability, through lower borrowing costs, federal policy or both, offered the possibility of filling its production pipeline without giving away so much margin.
然而，今年夏天出台的《21世纪住房之路法案》（21st Century Road to Housing Act）让房屋建筑商们几乎一无所获。据KBW董事总经理杰德·拉赫曼尼（Jade Rahmani）称，鉴于当前房地产市场的状况，莱纳需要大约三年时间才能完成其土地开发义务。
But this summer’s 21st Century Road to Housing Act left the homebuilders largely empty-handed. Given the current conditions in the housing market, it will take Lennar around three years to work through its land obligations, according to Jade Rahmani, managing director at KBW.
“Millrose项目带来的影响比我们之前的模型预测的要糟糕，也比我认为管理层预期的要糟糕，”拉赫曼尼说。“我不认为政治手段能帮他们度过难关。”在最近与分析师的电话会议上，米勒表示他仍然相信联邦或州政府会采取行动，但“这比我预想的要花更长时间”。目前，尽管其他房屋建筑商都在放缓生产以适应萎缩的需求，但该公司仍在响应政府的号召继续建设，任由利润率跌至接近2008年的水平。
“The impact from Millrose is worse than we previously modeled, and worse than I think management expected,” Rahmani said. “I don’t think politics is going to get them through this.”In a recent call with analysts, Miller said he still believes that federal or state action is likely, but “it’s taken longer than I would’ve liked.”For now, even as other homebuilders slow down production to match diminished demand, the company is heeding the administration’s call to continue building, letting the margins fall to close to 2008 levels.
即便如此，伯克希尔的买入行为仍表明了对其长期未来的信任。一旦需求回升，该公司的全新结构预计将带来回报。
Even still, Berkshire’s purchases signal trust in Lennar’s long-term future. When and if demand picks up, the company’s new structure is expected to pay off.
彭博行业研究（Bloomberg Intelligence）的德鲁·雷丁（Drew Reading）表示：“这实际上是对住房市场长期前景投下的信任票，也是押注莱纳在市场最终反弹时具备爆发力。”
“It’s really just a vote of confidence in the long-term outlook for housing and a bet on Lennar having torque to an eventual market rebound,” Bloomberg Intelligence’s Drew Reading said.
伯克希尔不断增加的持股比例对其影响有限。自1997年以来一直担任首席执行官、董事长或两者兼任的米勒拥有莱纳公司（Lennar）超过三分之二的B类股，这使他掌握了该公司约42%的总投票权。
Berkshire’s growing stake only gives it so much influence. Miller, who has held the title of CEO, chairman or both since 1997, owns more than two-thirds of Lennar Class B shares, granting him about 42% of the firm’s total voting rights.