Berkshire Hathaway’s $1 billion homebuilding investment indicates Warren Buffett’s confidence in a future U.S. housing market rebound.

The billionaire’s Berkshire Hathaway investment group has firmly outpaced the S&P 500 over the past five years, and has delivered staggering returns since he began converting it from a textile company into an acquisition machine in the mid-1960s.

Berkshire Hathaway revealed four new investments Thursday in steelmaker Nucor, insurer UnitedHealth and two of the nation’s biggest homebuilders — Lennar and DR Horton — but only one of the investments was big enough to ensure that legendary investor Warren Buffett may have handled them.