Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Weather puts chill on Toll Brothers


While Toll Brothers Inc. experienced a strong fiscal first quarter, the winter weather affected its business.

Toll isn’t alone. The snow storms that dampened its production resonated throughout the housing industry. The National Association of Home Builders saw a decline in confidence index and housing starts fell by 16 percent across the country.

Toll reported in its first-quarter results that it will likely complete constructing between 5,100 to 5,850 new homes during this year, which is a 4 percent decline than an earlier estimate it made. The company said construction as well as housing starts were effected by the “severe winter weather in the Midwest, Mid Atlantic and Northeast,” which is where about half of the communities the company is selling homes.

"This was the coldest January since 2001 and one of the worst winters since we entered the business,” said Robert I. Toll, chairman of the Horsham, Pa., company, said in a statement.

In spite of the bad weather, the company said it is optimistic that those who want to buy will emerge in the spring and seek to gets deals in what is still a low-interest rate environment.

Toll’s recorded net income of $45.6 million, or 25 cents a share compared with net income of $4.4 million, or 3 cent a share for the same period a year ago.

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