Berkshire Hathaway buys Taylor Morrison for $6.8 billion

Berkshire Hathaway just closed its largest deal under Greg Abel’s leadership, snapping up homebuilder Taylor Morrison for $6.8 billion in cash. The $72.50-per-share purchase, completed July 24, gives Berkshire an eighth-generation homebuilder with a national footprint and deep ties to entry-level buyers. The move marks a major bet on housing just as interest rates remain high and affordability tight, but it also shows Abel is following Warren Buffett’s playbook of deploying “float”—the cash Berkshire collects from insurance premiums—to fund big bets rather than hoarding cash.

Taylor Morrison brings scale: nearly 23,000 closings in 2025 across 21 states, 52 markets, and 700 communities. Its brands—Esplanade, Yardly, and Home Funding—will merge into Berkshire’s Clayton Properties Group, creating the country’s fourth-largest homebuilder. The deal diversifies Berkshire’s revenue beyond insurance and railroads into a sector tied to household formation and demographic trends. Berkshire paid with $8.5 billion in enterprise value, including debt, funded from its $400 billion cash pile—a reserve that now earns healthy interest in today’s high-rate environment.

The timing raises questions. Housing prices are near record highs, not the distressed levels Buffett famously exploited during past downturns. That means Berkshire is buying at cyclical peaks, not troughs, which could test its discipline. There’s also execution risk: merging four brands into Clayton’s 15 builders while investors watch Abel’s first steps as CEO isn’t a simple task. Skeptics argue Berkshire may have overpaid for growth that could take years to pay off.

Still, the move fits Berkshire’s long-term capital allocation style, using cheap float to buy assets that generate steady cash. It also mirrors peers like Blackstone, which recently bought Dresser Utility Solutions for $1.8 billion, deploying capital into cash-generative infrastructure. Whether this deal pays off depends on housing demand, integration success, and whether Berkshire’s cash hoard stays deployed—or waits for the next storm.