Fourth-quarter earnings for Toll Bros. declined 77 percent
from the same period a year ago, the Horsham-based luxury-home builder said
Tuesday.
Toll said it earned $94.9 million, or 54 cents a share, in
the quarter ended Oct. 31, compared with a profit of $411.4 million, or $2.35 a
share, a year earlier.
Deferred tax-asset valuation allowance reversals fell to
$4.6 million last quarter, compared with $394.7 million the year before, the
builder said.
Pre-tax income for the quarter was higher than the same
period in 2012, Toll said, as sales, revenues and average prices climbed above
those previous year figures.
In a wide-ranging interview Dec. 5 at Toll's Horsham
headquarters, CEO Douglas Yearley Jr. attributed what he called a "flat
but not backward" housing market of the last six months to issues related
to consumer confidence, including June's spike in interest rates and increasing
new-home prices.
"Remember that these are our buyers' third or fourth
houses [having owned]," Yearley said, and "the issue of rising
interest rates affect those who have houses to sell" before they can buy
from Toll.
"Buyer confidence, therefore, remains fragile, and
people are sitting on the sidelines to see where rates will go," Yearley,
who took over as CEO from Robert I. Toll - now executive chairman - in June
2010.
All builders, including Toll, "have been raising prices
aggressively in the last 18 months," he said, and with construction well
below the 1.5 million units in normal years and supply of homes low,
"there is an opportunity for significant price appreciation."
The average price of homes delivered in the quarter rose to
$703,000, up from $582,000 in the fourth quarter of 2012.
When you couple rising prices with higher interest rates,
many buyers are "sitting back to see what will happen," Yearley said.
At the moment, he said, "We don't feel the way we did
in February and March, when we were rocking and rolling."
That said, Yearley and Toll are predicting a banner 2014 -
the builder's fiscal year has been underway for more than a month and higher
sales reflect that, the CEO said.
Yearley believes that the economy will continue to improve,
and that will give consumer confidence a big shot in the arm.
An important indicator is net signed contracts - the value
of which rose 23 percent to $839 million year-over-year.
Toll's backlog was up 57 percent to $2.63 billion, or 43
percent to 3,679 units.
Fiscal 2013 net income was $170.6 million, or $0.97 per
share, compared with 2012's $487.1 million, or $2.86 per share, Toll said.
Fiscal 2013's pre-tax income was $267.7 million, compared to
2012's pre-tax income of $112.9 million, according to the builder.
Source: Philly.com
No comments:
Post a Comment