Toll Brothers Profit Tops Forecasts on Booming Home Demand
Luxury home builder Toll Brothers (TOL) - Get Report reported stronger-than-expected earnings after the bell Tuesday amid booming housing demand.
In the fiscal 2021 first quarter ended Jan. 31, Toll registered profit of $96.5 million, or 76 cents per share, up from $56.9 million, or 41 cents in the year-ago quarter. That latest per-share profit swamped the FactSet analyst consensus of 47 cents.
Revenue gained 9% to $1.4 billion in the latest quarter from $1.3 billion last year. The latest number beat the analyst consensus of $1.35 billion.
Toll shares recently rose $1.47, or 2.7%, to $55.70 in after-hours trading. They gained 1.08% during the regular session Tuesday and have jumped 22% over the past six months, as luxury home demand has soared during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities surged 10.1% in December from a year earlier. By comparison, between 1890 and 2012, U.S. house prices increased by 150% in real terms, according to a Dallas Federal Reserve Bank study.
As for Toll, “the housing market remains very strong, driven by a tight supply of new and existing homes for sale, favorable demographic trends, low mortgage rates, and a heightened appreciation for home ownership, especially among our customers,” said Chief Executive Douglas Yearley in a statement.
“These market conditions, which we expect to continue for the foreseeable future, clearly play to our strengths. … We raised our fiscal year guidance across nearly all key metrics. Our backlog provides good visibility through the first half of FY 2022, when we expect even stronger results.”
