Share count
3Mpeak FY2017
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NVR, NVR Inc.
Homebuilders capital-intensive
A capital-intensive business, run on heavy physical assets that must be kept working and earn a return above what they cost to maintain.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$10.3B
−1.9% YoY · 6% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $9.8B 5-yr avg $10.0B
Revenue $1.9B −21.7% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income $198M yr-ago $300M
Net margin 10.5% yr-ago 12.5%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run about 15% through the cycle, a solid margin the cost base and competition set as much as the price does. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has run high across the record (median 76%, above 15% in 8 of 8 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 12% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Whether these returns reflect real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $5.8B | $6.3B | $7.2B | $7.4B | $7.5B | $9.0B | $10.5B | $9.5B | $10.5B | $10.3B | $9.8B | RevenueRevenue |
| $683M | $871M | $985M | $1.1B | $1.1B | $1.6B | $2.3B | $2.0B | $2.1B | $1.8B | $1.6B | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 11.7% | 13.8% | 13.7% | 14.2% | 14.8% | 18.4% | 21.8% | 20.6% | 20.4% | 17.1% | 16.7% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $425M | $538M | $797M | $879M | $901M | $1.2B | $1.7B | $1.6B | $1.7B | $1.3B | $1.2B | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 36% | 37% | 17% | 14% | 16% | 22% | 23% | 17% | 20% | 24% | 23% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $393M | $570M | $723M | $867M | $925M | $1.2B | $1.9B | $1.5B | $1.4B | $1.1B | $1.3B | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $22M | $23M | $20M | $21M | $22M | $19M | $17M | $17M | $18M | $25M | $25M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| ($98M) | ($34M) | ($170M) | ($111M) | ($49M) | ($72M) | $45M | ($210M) | ($400M) | ($312M) | ($75M) | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $22M | $20M | $20M | $23M | $16M | $18M | $18M | $25M | $29M | $25M | $22M | CapexCapex |
| 0.4% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.2% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $371M | $550M | $703M | $844M | $909M | $1.2B | $1.9B | $1.5B | $1.4B | $1.1B | $1.2B | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 6.4% | 8.7% | 9.8% | 11.4% | 12.1% | 13.7% | 17.6% | 15.6% | 12.9% | 10.6% | 12.6% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| $371M | $550M | $703M | $844M | $909M | $1.2B | $1.9B | $1.5B | $1.3B | $1.1B | $1.2B | Free cash flowFCF |
| 6.4% | 8.7% | 9.8% | 11.4% | 12.1% | 13.7% | 17.6% | 15.5% | 12.8% | 10.6% | 12.6% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $455M | $422M | $846M | $698M | $371M | $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.1B | $2.1B | $1.8B | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| 49% | 60% | 76% | 76% | — | — | 188% | 140% | 110% | 70% | 53% | ROICROIC |
| 33% | 33% | 44% | 38% | 29% | 41% | 49% | 36% | 40% | 35% | 35% | Return on equityROE |
| 33% | 33% | 44% | 38% | 29% | 41% | 49% | 36% | 40% | 35% | 35% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $416M | $690M | $732M | $1.2B | $2.8B | $2.6B | $2.6B | $3.2B | $2.7B | $2.0B | $1.7B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $2.6B | $3.0B | $3.2B | $3.8B | $5.8B | $5.8B | $5.7B | $6.6B | $6.4B | $5.9B | $5.6B | Total assetsAssets |
| 31.5× | 36.0× | 39.3× | 41.4× | 27.4× | 30.9× | 58.0× | 70.5× | 77.1× | — | 57.7× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $1.3B | $1.6B | $1.8B | $2.3B | $3.1B | $3.0B | $3.5B | $4.4B | $4.2B | $3.9B | $3.5B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 0.7% | 0.7% | 1.1% | 1.1% | 0.7% | 0.7% | 0.8% | 1.0% | 0.7% | 0.7% | 0.7% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 4.1M | 4.2M | 4.1M | 4.0M | 3.9M | 3.9M | 3.5M | 3.4M | 3.3M | 3.1M | 2.9M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $1418.75 | $1487.23 | $1750.65 | $1859.71 | $1924.32 | $2319.57 | $3000.25 | $2770.71 | $3170.56 | $3363.84 | $3348.15 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $103.62 | $126.77 | $194.82 | $221.13 | $230.11 | $320.48 | $491.82 | $463.31 | $506.69 | $436.55 | $423.08 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $90.31 | $129.74 | $171.91 | $212.39 | $232.12 | $317.32 | $527.76 | $431.14 | $408.53 | $357.37 | $420.45 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $90.31 | $129.74 | $171.91 | $212.39 | $232.12 | $317.32 | $527.76 | $428.82 | $405.26 | $357.37 | $420.45 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $5.45 | $4.78 | $4.81 | $5.71 | $4.12 | $4.63 | $5.25 | $7.24 | $8.80 | $7.99 | $7.62 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $317.85 | $378.65 | $441.98 | $589.28 | $792.28 | $778.04 | $999.52 | $1270.55 | $1268.31 | $1259.28 | $1193.49 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +10.1%/yr | +11.8%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | +16.5%/yr | +9.0%/yr |
| EPS | +17.3%/yr | +13.7%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +4.3%/yr | +14.2%/yr |
| Book value / share | +16.5%/yr | +9.7%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
ROIC
70%low FY2016
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
$1.1Bowner earningsvs.$1.3Bnet incomelow FY2016
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedEach year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.
FY2016FY2025
Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.
In fiscal 2025 the business reported $1.3B of profit but $1.1B of owner earnings: $243M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | $1.3B | $1.7B | $1.6B | $1.7B | $1.2B |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$25M | +$18M | +$17M | +$17M | +$19M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$69M | +$74M | +$100M | +$83M | +$58M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | −$312M | −$400M | −$210M | +$45M | −$72M |
| Cash from operations | $1.1B | $1.4B | $1.5B | $1.9B | $1.2B |
| Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume | −$25M | −$18M | −$17M | −$18M | −$18M |
| Owner earnings | $1.1B | $1.4B | $1.5B | $1.9B | $1.2B |
| Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still | — | −$11M | −$8M | — | — |
| Free cash flow | $1.1B | $1.3B | $1.5B | $1.9B | $1.2B |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 11% | 13% | 16% | 18% | 14% |
Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $69M), owner earnings is nearer $1.0B.
Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- Can it pay its interest? 64.4×ComfortableOperating income $1.8B ÷ interest expense $28M
What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
- Net cashCash $2.0B − debt $600M
What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $1.4B, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Very high (≥25%) through the cycle8-yr median, range 49%–188%; 54% latest = NOPAT $1.4B ÷ invested capital $2.5BIndustry peers: median 15%
What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 8 years (it ran 54% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
- Solid through the cycle10-yr median margin, range 6%–18%; latest $1.1B = operating cash $1.1B − maintenance capex $25MIndustry peers: median 5%
What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 11% of revenue this year, a 11% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $69M of SBC) leaves $1.0B.
- Mostly cash-backedCash from ops $1.1B ÷ net income $1.3B
What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.
How is the cash used?
- Returned more than it generatedDividends + buybacks $1.8B ÷ Owner Earnings $1.1B
What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $1.1B of Owner Earnings, $1.8B (167%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $1.8B buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $69M stock comp, the real buyback was about $1.8B. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
- Investing or harvesting? 1.00×MaintainingCapex $25M ÷ depreciation $25M
What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.
Graham’s defensive tests · 3 of 4 met
Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.
- Adequate size PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $10.3B
What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
- Strong liquidity —Current ratio ≥ 2× · —
What this means
Current assets / liabilities not in the data yet.
- Earnings stability PassA profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted dividends · none paid
What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
- Earnings growth PassEarnings +33% over the record · +162%
What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
- Moderate price —P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $569.70/share (latest year $496.36), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $1431.81/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
Durability & moat, 2016–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 10 of 10
What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
- Operating margin 13% → 19% (3-yr avg ends)
In the filing’s words The margin widened even though the filing names price competition — the gain came from volume or cost, not pricing power. Read where.
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 13% early to 19% lately, median 15% — pricing power intact or improving.
- Owner earnings growth +12%/yr
What this means
Owner earnings grew about 12% a year over the record.
- Worst year 2016 · 11.7% op. margin
What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
- Share count −3.2%/yr
What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor
The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
How the cash was used, 2016–2025
Over the record, the business generated $10.6B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.
- Reinvested$216M · 2%
- Buybacks$10.8B · 102%
- Returned to owners$10.8B
104% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $10.8B as buybacks.
- Source of funding−$436M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $436M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.
- Average price paid for buybacks$4516.01
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 2M shares were bought for $10.8B, about $4516.01 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $1626.25 (2016) to $8010.55 (2024), and 2024, near the top of that range, was also its heaviest buyback year ($2.1B).
- Net change in share count−28.7%
The diluted count fell from 4M to 3M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
- Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.
- Return on what it retained—
Not read here: owner earnings are negative over the span, or the company returned nearly all its earnings rather than retaining them, so there is too little retained to measure a return on.
Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $4.2M | $62.6M | $1.2B |
| 2022 | $42.9M | $16.2M | $1.9B |
| 2022 | $19.3M | $12.7M | $1.9B |
| 2023 | $1.8M | $32.1M | $1.5B |
| 2024 | $2.3M | $13.9M | $1.4B |
| 2025 | $1.7M | −$9.1M | $1.1B |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership8.6%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$69M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 4% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
Inverting the record
Invert: instead of why NVR Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.
None of the 3 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.
Each test came back clean
- Is it less profitable than it was?
- Did the share count rise anyway?
- Did reported profit become cash?
Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Inventory, Stock compensation, Contingencies as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Homebuilders
The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | Gross margin | Op. margin | ROIC | Owner earn. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PHMPulteGroup Inc. | $17.3B | — | 16.3% | 19% | 9% |
| TOLToll Brothers Inc. | $11.0B | 22% | 11.6% | 13% | 9% |
| NVRNVR Inc. | $10.3B | — | 16.0% | 76% | 12% |
| TMHCTaylor Morrison Home Corporation | $8.1B | 20% | 9.1% | 8% | 10% |
| KBHKB Home | $6.2B | — | 8.8% | 15% | 5% |
| MHOM/I Homes Inc. | $4.4B | 23% | 11.0% | 20% | 3% |
| DFHDream Finders Homes Inc. | $4.3B | 16% | 7.8% | 41% | 3% |
| CCSCentury Communities Inc. | $4.1B | — | 7.9% | 6% | -1% |
| Group median | — | — | 10.0% | 17% | 7% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what NVR Inc. has delivered.
$
Through the cycle, NVR Inc. earns about $1.2B on its 11.7% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 10.6% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.
Base
—
The assumptions
9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.
Enter a price above to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−6%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+11%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+12%/yr
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—
P/B—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.
Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%
Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.
Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.
Owner-earnings yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Owner earnings $1.2B on 3M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net cash $1.1B. The if-converted diluted count is 3M, 8% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "NVR Inc. (NVR), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/NVR, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← NVEE its page in the Manual NVST →
Industry order: ← MHO the Homebuilders chapter ONEG →