For Toll Brothers, whose enviable core customers are ones whose financial wherewithal effectively shields them from worries about high prices and high interest rates, the question is not “can they buy?”
It’s will they? And will they buy now?
“America’s Luxury Homebuilder” continues to rely on its move-up, active adult, and luxury segments — and their pursuit of “the home of their dreams” — to navigate a languishing housing market, where other large, medium, and small enterprises have been largely hampered by affordability constraints, economic uncertainty, low consumer confidence, and stubbornly high interest rates.
This product-mix strategy helped Toll Brothers grow its community count, maintain high margins, and keep incentives relatively low in 2025. The builder, not expecting any market improvements next year, plans to stick with this playbook to remain relatively strong in a weak market that’s hammering margins for other operators.
Toll Brothers also plans to close its more than $300 million sale of Toll Brothers Apartment Living to Kennedy Wilson Holdings in the first quarter of next year. The transaction represents a calculated, focused reset, with executives planning to reinvest much of the proceeds in the core homebuilding business.
The builder’s Q4 2025 earnings call reveals an operator that, while not immune to the current market’s headwinds, is better-positioned to weather the storm, largely due to its resilient buyers.
Toll Brothers’ emphasis on affluent buyers pays off
The builder’s focus on affluent buyers is, by many metrics, a sound strategy in a market where the entry-level market is strained. Toll Brothers has the highest average sale price — $972,000 as of Q4 — of any public homebuilder nationally, and is using this to their advantage.
Over 70% of the Toll Brothers’ business serves the move-up and empty-nester segments, with the remainder focused on affluent, older, first-time buyers.
“Our luxury business is differentiated as we serve a more affluent customer who is less impacted by the affordability pressures that continue to impact the broader housing market,” said Chairman and CEO Doug Yearley, Jr.
Incentives totaled 8% of delivered sales price, up from 7% in Q2. Tri Pointe Homes, which similarly focuses on more established buyers, had an incentive rate of 8.2% last quarter.
Consumer confidence and broader economic uncertainty, not mortgage rates, are the main factors impacting Toll Brothers’ customers. While the company heavily markets rate buydowns, the company’s buyers rarely use them since affordability isn’t as much of a concern.
The builder’s buyers instead spend the bulk of incentive dollars on design studio customizations and other upgrades.
“The average spending on design studio selections, structural options, and lot premiums was approximately $206,000 per home, or roughly 24% of the base price. These upgrades benefit our margins as they tend to be highly accretive,” Yearley said.
Executives praised the strong performance of the active adult segment, which accounts for about 17% of the company’s revenue, due to that buyer segment’s relative affluence and built-up equity. Many other builders, such as PulteGroup, have similarly pointed to the strength of active adult communities.
Competing where there is little competition
Toll Brothers’ emphasis on the luxury market helps the company compete where there is often not much competition. Other big builders often don’t compete with Toll Brothers for land, partially because Toll Brothers focuses on the luxury market.
There’s been a lot of discussion about the glut of supply in certain markets, particularly in the Sun Belt. However, most of this overbuilding is concentrated in the entry-level and more affordable segments, according to Yearley.
“There is some impact on us, particularly because we have a lot of buyers with homes to sell. In our core business of $1 million homes, we’re just not seeing [much of an impact]. We have a unique niche that we feel very lucky to be in,” Yearley said.
There’s another benefit. Surprisingly, coastal California and the I-95 corridor from the Washington, DC area up to Boston were the company’s strongest regions. According to Yearley, Toll Brothers is uniquely positioned to thrive in those expensive, tough-to-entitle markets.
When discussing the company’s success in the northeast, Yearley said:
“There’s very little land for the new homebuilders. We have a pretty unique positioning there. It’s tough to come into those markets and find land that you can get entitled quickly and get the machine running. This is our home corridor that we do well in. We know how difficult the entitlements are, and we’re benefiting from very, very tight resale markets and very few builders to compete with,” he said.
He expressed similar sentiments about coastal California, which includes the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles suburbs.
“We don’t have other builders anywhere near our price points. Those markets have continued to perform well with limited competition.”
Shifting to a healthy spec mix as community count grows
Executives seemed happy about the current balance of specs, with spec homes now accounting for just over 50% of deliveries.
“Our spec strategy has allowed us to appeal to buyers looking for a quicker move-in, further widening our addressable market,” Yearley said. “In addition, many of our specs are sold early in the construction process, which affords many of our customers the opportunity to choose their finishes and make upgrades.”
Toll Brothers’ gross profit margin was 27.1% last quarter, but it is forecasted to fall to 26.0% by the end of next year since there could be an uptick in spec homes in the latter half of 2026.
A sustained level of spec homes helped guide Toll Brothers to a record-setting year with 11,292 homes delivered and $10.8 billion in home sales revenue. There was a 9% community count increase, and executives are forecasting a similar 8 to 10% increase for next year.
Toll Brothers to finalize apartment deal
The closing of the apartment deal with Kennedy Wilson was delayed, but executives expect to complete the deal by the end of January. The total deal size, reported in September at $347 million, is now up to $380 million due to ongoing investment since the initial announcement.
The deal involves about half of Toll Brothers’ apartment living portfolio. The Pennsylvania-based builder also expects to completely exit the multifamily business over the next few years, including condos.
“It has been a business I have been very proud of for the last 15 years,” said Yearley. “If we were private, we would stay in it. But we recognize as a public homebuilder, we are not getting the full credit that we think we deserve for the earnings generated from that business. We understand that analysts, investors, and Wall Street would prefer that we focus on core pure-play homebuilding.”
The sale will free up cash to return to investors and reinvest in the homebuilding side of the business. It also signals to the other players in homebuilding that Toll Brothers is sharpening its focus and is solely concentrated on dominating the luxury homebuilding market.
Compare and contrast
Toll Brothers has mastered the luxury homebuilding market on a national level, a major asset in a market where affluent and established buyers are the most reliable and least affected by an uncertain economy.
Other public builders are trying to take a page from this playbook and are starting to focus more of their energy on higher-priced communities.
For example, both Beazer Homes and Hovnanian Enterprises recently announced on recent earnings calls that they would shift some of their focus away from entry-level communities in favor of those in the move-up segment.
Their reasoning? Entry-level homes require too many incentives to sell and offer tight margins.
Toll Brothers’ exit from the multifamily business reflects the builder’s confidence in its luxury strategy. It also signals that the builder is leaning in on its strength, maintaining a focused vision on what sets it apart from the competition.
