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Employee Benefit Plans
 12 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2025
Compensation Related Costs [Abstract]  
Compensation and Employee Benefit Plans EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS
The Company offers its employees a comprehensive compensation and benefits package, which includes a broad range of benefits, including medical, dental and vision healthcare insurance and paid parental leave. In addition to base pay, eligible employees may participate in the Company’s 401(k) plan, employee stock purchase plan, short-term incentive bonus program and/or its stock compensation plans as described below.

Deferred Compensation Plans

The Company has a 401(k) plan for all employees who have been with the Company for a period of six months or more. The Company matches portions of employees’ voluntary contributions. The Company recorded $44.3 million, $43.8 million and $40.2 million of expense for matching contributions in fiscal 2025, 2024 and 2023, respectively.

The Company’s Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan (SERP) is a non-qualified deferred compensation program that provides benefits payable to certain management employees upon retirement, death or termination of employment. Under the SERP, the Company accrues an unfunded benefit based on a percentage of the eligible employees’ salaries, as well as an interest factor based upon a predetermined formula. The Company’s liabilities related to the SERP were $64.2 million and $56.8 million at September 30, 2025 and 2024, respectively. The Company recorded $9.4 million, $8.9 million and $8.3 million of expense for this plan in fiscal 2025, 2024 and 2023, respectively.

The Company has a deferred compensation plan available to a select group of employees which allows participating employees to contribute compensation into the plan on a before tax basis and defer income taxation on the contributions until the funds are withdrawn from the plan. The participating employees designate investments for their contributions; however, the Company is not required to invest the contributions in the designated investments. The Company’s net liabilities related to the deferred compensation plan were $206.9 million and $184.5 million at September 30, 2025 and 2024, respectively. The Company records as SG&A expense the amount that the employee contributions would have earned had the funds been invested in the designated investments. The Company recorded $18.1 million, $36.5 million and $17.0 million of expense for this plan in fiscal 2025, 2024 and 2023, respectively.

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

The Company’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan provides eligible employees the opportunity to purchase common stock of the Company at a discounted price of 85% of the fair market value of the stock on the designated dates of purchase. The price to eligible employees may be further discounted depending on the average fair market value of the stock during the period and certain other criteria. Under the terms of the plan, the total fair market value of common stock that an eligible employee may purchase each year is limited to the lesser of 15% of the employee’s annual compensation or $25,000. Under the plan, employees purchased 159,460 shares for $18.1 million in fiscal 2025, 137,347 shares for $15.3 million in fiscal 2024 and 143,960 shares for $11.0 million in fiscal 2023. At September 30, 2025, the Company had 2.1 million shares of common stock reserved for issuance pursuant to the Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

Incentive Bonus Plan

The Company’s Incentive Bonus Plan provides for the Compensation Committee to award short-term performance bonuses to senior management based upon the level of achievement of certain criteria. For fiscal 2025, 2024 and 2023, the Compensation Committee approved awards whereby certain executive officers could earn performance bonuses based upon percentages of the Company’s pre-tax income. Compensation expense related to these plans was $22.5 million, $29.9 million and $35.4 million in fiscal 2025, 2024 and 2023, respectively.
Stock-Based Compensation

The Company’s Stock Incentive Plan provides for the granting of equity awards, such as stock options, performance stock units (PSUs) and restricted stock units (RSUs), to executive officers, other key employees and non-management directors. PSUs are earned by achieving key performance goals, and RSUs are earned through continued employment with the Company over a requisite time period. Each stock unit represents the contingent right to receive one share of the Company’s common stock if the performance criteria and/or vesting conditions are satisfied. The stock units have no dividend or voting rights until vested. At September 30, 2025, the Company had 22.1 million shares of common stock reserved for issuance and 20.2 million shares available for future grants under the Stock Incentive Plan.

Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) Equity Awards

During fiscal 2025, 2024 and 2023, RSUs were granted to the Company’s executive officers, other key employees and non-management directors (collectively, approximately 1,600, 1,470 and 1,380 recipients, respectively). These awards vest annually in equal installments over periods of three to five years.

The following table provides additional information related to RSU activity during fiscal 2025, 2024 and 2023. The number of RSUs vested includes shares of common stock withheld by the Company on behalf of employees to satisfy the tax withholding requirements.
Year Ended September 30,
202520242023
Number of
Restricted Stock Units		Weighted Average
Grant Date Fair Value		Number of
Restricted Stock Units		Weighted Average
Grant Date Fair Value		Number of
Restricted Stock Units		Weighted Average
Grant Date Fair Value
Outstanding at beginning of year2,309,737 $95.28 2,966,925 $70.85 3,466,094 $57.50 
Granted608,835 156.12 663,860 147.79 877,131 93.44 
Vested(884,883)79.17 (1,233,866)65.51 (1,251,785)50.61 
Cancelled(130,880)112.49 (87,182)85.12 (124,515)61.95 
Outstanding at end of year1,902,809 $121.06 2,309,737 $95.28 2,966,925 $70.85 

The total fair value of shares vested on the vesting date during fiscal 2025, 2024 and 2023 was $114.8 million, $184.7 million and $115.2 million, respectively. For fiscal 2025, 2024 and 2023, compensation expense related to RSUs was $80.6 million, $77.3 million and $65.7 million, respectively. At September 30, 2025, there was $170.3 million of unrecognized compensation expense related to unvested RSU awards. This expense is expected to be recognized over a weighted average period of 2.6 years.

Performance Stock Unit (PSU) Equity Awards

During fiscal 2025, 2024 and 2023, PSUs that vest at the end of three-year performance periods were granted to the Company’s executive officers and other key employees. The number of units that ultimately vest depends on the Company’s relative position as compared to its peers in achieving certain performance criteria and can range from 0% to 300% of the number of units granted. Compensation expense related to these grants is based on the Company’s performance against a market index or its peer group, the elapsed portion of the performance period and the grant date fair value of the award. The performance criteria for the awards issued in fiscal 2023 were total shareholder return compared to the S&P 500 and return on investment, SG&A expense containment and homebuilding gross profit compared to homebuilding peers. The performance criteria for the awards issued in fiscal 2024 were total shareholder return compared to the S&P 500 and return on assets and operating margin compared to homebuilding peers. The performance criteria for the awards issued in fiscal 2025 were total shareholder return and return on assets compared to the S&P 500, pre-tax return on assets compared to homebuilding peers and earnings per share growth.
The following table provides additional information related to the PSUs outstanding at September 30, 2025.

Grant DateVesting DateTarget Number of Performance Stock Units Grant Date Fair Value per UnitCompensation Expense
Year Ended September 30,
202520242023
(In millions)
October 2022September 2025600,000$79.97 $7.8 $10.0 $11.6 
October 2023 (1)September 2026277,779146.72 13.1 13.1 — 
October 2024September 2027327,717176.39 19.3 — — 
$40.2 $23.1 $11.6 
_______________
(1)The PSUs granted in October 2023 were subsequently modified in December 2023 to change the performance criteria to total shareholder return, return on assets and operating margin.

In October 2025, the Compensation Committee approved the issuance of the PSUs that vested in September 2025 in the form of 484,492 shares of common stock to satisfy the awards.

Stock Options
Stock options are granted at exercise prices which equal the market value of the Company’s common stock at the date of the grant. The Company has not granted stock options in recent years and there were no options outstanding as of September 30, 2025.