Lot demand shifts to terms and timing at Forestar, Five Point

In 2024 and early 2025, homebuilders large, medium and small were smitten with the strategic notion of “land light.”In 2026, and for the near future, most everybody is more preoccupied, and rightly so, with “land right.”Many of the U.S.’s most prolific new-construction markets undergoing some form of “work-out” to winnow down aging spec inventory and secure a floor on pace-price levels.In this context, land right means controlling the locations, lot counts and delivery schedules a builder needs to support future community openings without over-extending a balance sheet with too much land, too early, at an internal rate of return basis that counts on stronger home prices and faster order pace than a market or submarket will bear.Homebuilders, with their respective product, pricing, land position, and customer targets, are each struggling to reconcile several binding goals that have fallen out of sync. They want to protect sales pace, preserve gross margin, reduce speculative inventory, grow or at least maintain community count and continue securing land for homes they may not start until 2028 or 2029.That means finding something elusive in a volatile and uncertain backdrop, a “strik...