Toll Brothers Offers 3.99% Loans

The home builder is slashing borrowing costs for new buyers in an effort to revive the abysmal market.

By Les Christie
CNNMoney.com

Last Updated: January 22, 2009

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- One of the nation's largest builders is trying to shock the flatlining new-home market into action with an incentive plan that will slash monthly mortgage payments for qualified buyers.

Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc., said Wednesday that it will offer buyers of its existing new-home inventory a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage at an interest rate of 3.99% with no points paid up-front. That contrasts with a rate of 5.59% for the average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage with 0.3 up-front point, as reported this week by Bankrate.com.

A buyer taking a Toll Brothers mortgage, as opposed to the 30-year rate quoted by Bankrate, could lower their monthly mortgage payments to $1,988 from $2,391, a savings of $403 a month on a $417,000 loan (the maximum mortgage loan that will be bought or guaranteed by Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) or Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) in most places).

"The offer is aimed at people waiting for the rates to drop," said Don Salmon, CEO of TBI Mortgage, the Toll subsidiary that will provide the mortgages. "It will be a strong catalyst for potential buyers to get off the fence."

New home sales have been extremely slow. In November, the latest month for which statistics are available, sales of new homes fell to an annualized rate of 407,000, down 2.9% from 419,000 in October and off 35.3% from November 2007.

The Toll Brothers (TOL, Fortune 500) offer is only in effect through Sunday, so buyers will have to act quickly. It's available on homes in 270 Toll communities across 21 states, according to Fred Cooper, Toll's senior VP of financing. He said the program has drawn an immediate response; the phones have been ringing off the hook.

Then, late Thursday, the company sweetened its offer, announcing that the 3.99% rate could also be locked in for as long as nine months. That option is aimed at Toll customers who want to purchase a new, built-to-suit home, rather than existing inventory.

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Toll Brothers Reports $93.7 Million Loss

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PHILADELPHIA — Luxury-home builder Toll Brothers Inc. on Tuesday posted a second-quarter loss that was smaller than Wall Street expected, as a hefty write-down driven by joint ventures was offset by other income.

Shares of Toll Brothers rose 64 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $21.60.

Chief Executive Robert Toll said demand continues to be weak in most markets as buyers stay skittish in the face of continued home price declines.

In a conference call with analysts, Toll also noted that investment funds have been showing interest in buying distressed properties. They're willing to partner with people in the housing industry in these purchases, providing even 80 to 90 percent of the capital.

But Toll said if their investment doesn't perform, then they might try to dump the homes _ and in so doing prolong the housing downturn.

"We've been outbid by the players that have raised the funds for this specific purpose. I hope everything works out for them," Toll said. "But if it doesn't, you may see this (investment) prolongs for quite a bit of time the problems that we've got."

Toll Brothers itself will continue to offer incentives to get people to buy homes _ a concession uncharacteristic of the builder that speaks to the severity of the housing market.

But Deutsche Bank analyst Nishu Sood said the builder should more aggressively discount because "by holding prices the company is just delaying the inevitable as prices are unlikely to revisit boom time levels for a prolonged period."

The company hasn't written off as much as other builders, and as such has a higher share of these charges to come, he wrote in a research note.

For the period ended April 30, Horsham, Pa.-based Toll reported a loss of $93.7 million, or 59 cents per share, compared with a year-ago profit of $36.7 million, or 22 cents per share.

The quarter included a pretax write-down of $288.1 million, which included $85 million from joint ventures with other builders on land development.

Toll also posted $40.2 million in gains from a property condemnation process, in which municipalities compensate landowners for taking their parcels to develop parks and other projects.

Without these charges and gain, Toll earned $81.3 million, or 49 cents per share, compared with $109.6 million, or 66 cents, a year ago.

Revenue fell 30 percent to $818.8 million from $1.17 billion last year.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected a loss of 89 cents per share including charges on sales of $818.5 million.

Net contracts, an indication of future business, fell by 58 percent to $496.5 million in the quarter from a year ago. Cancellations totaled $234.1 million, down from $274.7 million last year.

The average home price on net contracts fell to $534,000 from $710,000 in 2007's second quarter.

Geographically, sales fell 45 percent in the southern states of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Texas. The mid-Atlantic, covering Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, declined by 39 percent. The west, comprising California, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, was down 28 percent.

Toll's northern region of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan and Minnesota fell 3.3 percent.

Net contracts fell 79 percent in the north, 62 percent in the west, 44 percent in the mid-Atlantic and 31 percent in the south. But the housing meltdown isn't affecting Manhattan, where Toll said homes have temporarily sold out.

The company said the quarter's backlog of homes ordered but not yet delivered totaled $2.08 billion, down 50 percent year-over-year.

-Deborah Yao
The Huffington Post
Posted: June 3, 2008

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