Toll Brothers Suffering from Depression

Robert Toll, the CEO of Toll Brothers, says the housing industry is in a "depression" and could fall by 10-20%. This comes from last week:

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.

"Maybe '74 and '75 was just as bad, but it was so short," Toll said.