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Builder sees ‘depression’ in housing market - CNNMoney.com
Toll Brothers head says market could fall by 20% and recovery could be up to three years away.
The chief executive of Toll Brothers Inc., the nation’s largest luxury-home builder, said Wednesday the housing industry is in a “depression” and any recovery could be two or three years away. In candid remarks at the JPMorgan Basics & Industrials Conference a day after reporting a second-quarter loss, Robert Toll said he’s not ready to call a bottom yet since the housing market could still get worse. “Can the market go down another ten or twenty percent? Sure,” said Toll, whose Horsham-based company will sit on cash unless a bargain land deal comes along. He said the current housing crisis is the worst he’s seen since the mid-1970s, but back then the decline was relatively short-lived. The current downturn started in late 2005.
