D.R. Horton, America’s largest homebuilder, announced significant increases in net income, revenue and net sales in its fourth quarter – growth the company expects to continue to see at the beginning of its next fiscal year.

“Our fiscal 2012 financial results reflect continued improvement in the housing market and in our company’s performance,” Donald. R. Horton, chairman and founder of the company, said in the company’s fourth quarter conference call.

In the conference call the company’s chief executive officer, Donald Tomnitz, said that the results in the final quarter and end of fiscal year 2012 were the strongest for the company since 2006.

Its net income showed a tremendous increase from the previous fiscal year. Excluding a non-cash benefit of $713.4 million, the company’s fiscal year net income was $242.9 million – a shocking 1907 percent increase from the net income of the previous fiscal year of $12.1 million, which excludes a tax benefit of $59.7 million. Its fourth quarter’s net income amounted to $99.2 million, excluding a tax benefit of $0.9 million – a tremendous increase of 193.5 percent from the year ago’s fourth quarter net income of $33.8 million, which excludes a tax benefit of $1.9 million.

Homebuilding revenues increased 20.9 percent from the year-ago quarter – going from  $1.1 billion in 2011 to $1.3 billion. The fiscal year also had a substantial increase in revenue from $3.6 billion in 2011 to $4.2 billion at the fiscal end of 2012, which is an increase of 19.3 percent.

Samer Keilani, a realtor and broker, was not surprised to learn about the company’s performance. “I expected a good quarter because of the extremely low percentage of interest rates for homebuyers,” Keilani said.

The low interest rates are a result of The Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program, commonly known as QE3, which was announced on Sept. 13 in order to strengthen the housing market. The Fed is purchasing $40 billion worth of mortgage-based securities every month until the foreseeable future in order to lower interest rates so that more people can afford to buy homes.

According to Zillow.com, 15-year fixed mortgage rates in Texas were at 2.71 percent as of Nov. 14, and the 30-year mortgage rate for Texas was 3.26 percent – both extremely low fixed mortgage rates.

The company’s net sales orders show that there is more demand this year than before.   Its net sales orders increased 24.4 percent from the year-ago quarter, going from 4,241 homes to 5,276 homes.

As D.R. Horton gains benefits from housing recovery, so do its shareholders.  The company announced a dividend of $0.0375 per share, which is payable on Dec. 17 to shareholders on record on Dec.3. The stock price closed at $ 18.39 on Nov. 14 -a 63 percent increase from that date 2011.

In the conference call, Tomnitz said the company hopes to continue its financial success by expanding the company into new attractive markets and submarkets.                                                                                                                             “We’re certainly focused on gaining market share in 2013, so we plan to do that by increasing our community count,” Tomnitz said.              &n
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D.R. Horton is America’s largest homebuilder based on the number of homes the company has closed, which amounted to 18,890 as of Sept. 30, 2012. The company is headquartered is in Fort Worth, Texas and was founded by Donald R. Horton.