Toll Brothers (TOL) Risk Factors

We operate in a very competitive environment in which we face competition from a number of other home builders in each market in which we operate. We compete with large national and regional home building companies and with smaller local home builders for land, financing, building components, and skilled management and labor resources. We also compete with the resale home market, also referred to as the "previously owned" or "existing" home market. An oversupply of homes available for sale or the heavy discounting of home prices by some of our competitors could adversely affect demand for our homes and the results of our operations. An increase in competitive conditions can have any of the following impacts on us: delivery of fewer homes; sale of fewer homes; higher cancellations by our home buyers; an increase in selling incentives and/or reduction of prices; and realization of lower gross margins due to lower sales prices or an inability to increase sales prices to offset increased costs of the homes delivered. If we are unable to compete effectively in our markets, our business could decline disproportionately to that of our competitors.

Our backlog reflects agreements of sale with our home buyers for homes that have not yet been delivered. We have received a deposit from our home buyer for each home reflected in our backlog, and generally we have the right to retain the deposit if the home buyer does not complete the purchase. In some cases, however, a home buyer may cancel the agreement of sale and receive a complete or partial refund of the deposit for reasons such as state and local law requirements, the home buyer's inability to obtain mortgage financing, the home buyer's inability to sell their current home, or our inability to complete and deliver the home within the specified time. Home buyers may also choose to cancel their home agreement and forfeit their deposit. The amount of deposit that we require varies by community and market and may be insufficient to compel a home buyer to complete the purchase. At October 31, 2024, we had 5,996 homes with a sales value of $6.47 billion in backlog. If economic conditions decline, if mortgage financing becomes less available or more costly, or if our homes become less attractive due to market price declines or due to other conditions at or in the vicinity of our communities, we could experience an increase in home buyers canceling their agreements of sale with us, which could have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

Our business is dependent upon the appeal of the Toll Brothers brand, and its association with quality and luxury is integral to our success. Our strategy has involved growing our business by expanding our luxury brand to new price points, product lines and geographies, including expansion of our affordable luxury products. If we are unable to maintain the position of the Toll Brothers brand, our business may be adversely affected by diminishing the distinctive appeal of the brand and tarnishing its image. This could result in lower sales and earnings. In addition, unfavorable media or investor and analyst reports related to our industry, company, brand, marketing, personnel, operations, business performance, or prospects may affect our stock price and the performance of our business, regardless of its accuracy. Furthermore, the speed at which negative publicity is disseminated has increased dramatically through the use of electronic communication, including social media outlets, websites and other digital platforms. Our success in maintaining and enhancing our brand depends on our ability to adapt to this rapidly changing media environment. Adverse publicity or negative commentary from media outlets or social media could damage our reputation and reduce the demand for our homes, which would adversely affect our business. We can also be affected by poor relations with the residents of communities we develop because efforts made by us to resolve issues or disputes that may arise in connection with the operation or development of their communities, or in connection with the transition of a homeowners association, could be deemed unsatisfactory by the affected residents and subsequent actions by these residents could adversely affect sales or our reputation. In addition, we could decide or be required to make material expenditures related to the settlement of such issues or disputes, which could adversely affect the results of our operations.

We must obtain the approval of numerous governmental authorities in connection with our development and construction activities, and these governmental authorities often have broad discretion in exercising their approval authority. We incur substantial costs related to compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. Any increase in legal and regulatory requirements may cause us to incur substantial additional costs or, in some cases, cause us to determine that the property is not feasible for development. Various local, state, and federal statutes, ordinances, rules, and regulations concerning building, zoning, sales, accessibility, safety, anti-discrimination, and similar matters apply to and/or affect the housing industry. Governmental regulation affects construction activities as well as sales activities, mortgage lending activities, and other dealings with home buyers, including anti-discrimination laws such as the Fair Housing Act and data privacy laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act. The industry also has experienced an increase in state and local legislation and regulations that limit the availability or use of land. Municipalities may also restrict or place moratoriums on the availability of utilities, such as water and sewer taps. In some areas, municipalities may enact growth control initiatives, which restrict the number of building permits available in a given year. In addition, we may be required to apply for additional approvals or modify our existing approvals because of changes in local circumstances or applicable law. If municipalities in which we operate take actions like these, it could have an adverse effect on our business by causing delays, increasing our costs, or limiting our ability to operate in those municipalities. Further, we may experience delays and increased expenses as a result of legal challenges to our proposed communities, whether brought by governmental authorities or private parties. Our mortgage subsidiary is subject to various state and federal statutes, rules, and regulations, including those that relate to licensing, lending operations, and other areas of mortgage origination and financing. The impact of those statutes, rules, and regulations can increase our home buyers' cost of financing, increase our cost of doing business, and restrict our home buyers' access to some types of loans.

As a home builder, we are subject to construction defect and home warranty claims arising in the ordinary course of business. These claims are common in the home building industry and can be costly. In addition, insuring against construction defect and product liability claims has become increasingly difficult due to limited coverage options, high costs, lack of reinsurance options and the exit of insurers from the market.There can be no assurance that any form of insurance coverage will be available in the future or, if it is offered, that it will be available on reasonable terms. If the limits or coverages of our current and former insurance programs prove inadequate, or we are not able to obtain adequate, or reasonably priced, insurance against these types of claims in the future, or the amounts currently provided for future warranty or insurance claims are inadequate, we may experience losses that could negatively impact our financial results. We record expenses and liabilities based on the estimated costs required to cover our self-insured liability under our insurance policies and estimated costs of potential claims and claim adjustment expenses that are above our coverage limits or that are not covered by our insurance policies. These estimated costs are based on an analysis of our historical claims and industry data, and include an estimate of claims incurred but not yet reported. The projection of losses related to these liabilities requires actuarial assumptions that are subject to variability due to uncertainties regarding construction defect claims relative to our markets and the types of products we build, insurance industry practices, and legal or regulatory actions and/or interpretations, among other factors. Key assumptions used in these estimates include claim frequencies, severities, and settlement patterns, which can occur over an extended period of time. In addition, changes in the frequency and severity of reported claims and the estimates to settle claims can impact the trends and assumptions used in the actuarial analysis, which could be material to our consolidated financial statements. Due to the degree of judgment required and the potential for variability in these assumptions, our actual future costs could differ from those estimated, and the difference could be material to our consolidated financial statements.

Increases in real estate taxes and other local government fees, such as fees imposed on developers to fund schools, open space, and road improvements, and/or provide low- and moderate-income housing, could increase our costs and have an adverse effect on our operations. In addition, increases in local real estate taxes could adversely affect our potential home buyers, who may consider those costs in determining whether to make a new home purchase and decide, as a result, not to purchase one of our homes. Changes in tax laws could reduce or eliminate tax deductions or incentives for homeowners and could make housing less affordable or otherwise reduce the demand for housing, which in turn could reduce our sales and hurt our results of operations. Further, while we believe that our recorded tax balances are adequate, it is not possible to predict the effects of possible changes in the tax laws or changes in their interpretation and whether they could have a material adverse impact on our operating results. We have filed our tax returns in prior years based upon certain filing positions we believe are appropriate. If the Internal Revenue Service or state taxing authorities disagree with these filing positions, we may owe additional taxes, which could be material.

We are subject to a variety of local, state and federal statutes, ordinances, rules and regulations concerning the protection of health and the environment, including those regulating the emission or discharge of materials into the environment, the management of storm water runoff at construction sites, the handling, use, storage and disposal of hazardous substances, impacts to wetlands and other sensitive environments, and the remediation of contamination at properties that we acquire, own or develop. In addition, state and local jurisdictions have in recent years enacted regulations that require new homes to be more energy efficient than existing homes, or to be more weather-resistant, or have mandated energy efficient features, such as solar panels, be included in new construction. The environmental and housing code regulations applicable to each community in which we operate vary greatly depending on the location of the community site, the site's environmental conditions and the present and former use of the site. Environmental regulations may cause delays, may cause us to incur substantial compliance, remediation or other costs, and can prohibit or severely restrict development and home building activity. In addition, noncompliance with these regulations could result in fines and penalties, obligations to remediate, permit revocations or other sanctions; and contamination or other environmental conditions at or in the vicinity of our developments, whether or not we were responsible for such conditions, may result in claims against us for personal injury, property damage or other losses. From time to time, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and other federal or state agencies review home builders' compliance with environmental laws and may levy fines and penalties for failure to strictly comply with applicable environmental laws or impose additional requirements for future compliance as a result of past failures. Any such actions taken with respect to us may increase our costs or harm our reputation. Further, we expect that increasingly stringent requirements will be imposed on home builders in the future. Environmental regulations can also have an adverse impact on the availability and price of certain building components such as lumber. In recent years, an increasing number of state and Federal laws and regulations have been enacted or proposed that deal with the effect of climate change on the environment. These laws and regulations, which are generally intended to directly or indirectly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve water or limit other potential climate change impacts, may impose restrictions or additional requirements on land development and home construction in certain areas. Such restrictions and requirements could increase our operating and compliance costs or require additional technology and capital investment, which could adversely affect our results of operations. This is a particular concern in the western United States, where some of the most extensive and stringent environmental laws and residential building construction standards in the country have been enacted, and where we have significant business operations. We believe we are in compliance in all material respects with existing climate-related government regulations applicable to our business, and such compliance has not had a material impact on our business. However, given the rapidly changing nature of environmental laws and matters that may arise that are not currently known, we cannot predict our future exposure concerning such matters, and our future costs to achieve compliance or remedy potential violations could be significant. Additionally, increased governmental and societal attention to environmental, social, and governance ("ESG") matters, including expanding mandatory and voluntary reporting, diligence, and disclosure on topics such as climate change, human capital, labor and risk oversight, could expand the nature, scope, and complexity of matters that we are required to control, assess and report. These factors may alter the environment in which we do business and may increase the ongoing costs of compliance and adversely impact our results of operations and cash flows. If we are unable to adequately address such ESG matters or fail to comply with all laws, regulations, policies and related interpretations, it could negatively impact our reputation and our business results.

We use information technology and other computer resources to carry out important operational and marketing activities as well as maintain our business records, including information provided by our customers. Many of these resources are provided to us and/or maintained on our behalf by third-party service providers pursuant to agreements that specify certain security and service level standards. Our ability to conduct our business may be impaired if these resources are compromised, degraded, damaged or fail, whether due to a virus or other harmful circumstance, intentional breach or disruption of our information technology resources by a third party, natural disaster, hardware or software corruption, failure or error (including a failure of security controls incorporated into or applied to such hardware or software), telecommunications system failure, service provider error or failure, intentional or unintentional personnel actions (including the failure to follow our security protocols), or lost connectivity to our networked resources. A significant and extended disruption in the functioning of these resources could impair our operations, damage our reputation, and cause us to lose customers, sales and revenue. In addition, breaches of our data security systems, including by cyber-attacks, could result in the unintended public disclosure or the misappropriation of our proprietary information or personal and confidential information, about our employees, consumers who view our homes, home buyers, mortgage loan applicants and business partners, requiring us to incur significant expense to address and resolve these kinds of issues. The release of confidential information may lead to identity theft and related fraud, litigation or other proceedings against us by affected individuals and/or business partners and/or by regulators, and the outcome of such proceedings, which could include penalties or fines, could have a material and adverse effect on our reputation, business, financial condition and results of operations. Depending on its nature, a particular breach or series of breaches of our systems may result in the unauthorized use, appropriation or loss of confidential or proprietary information on a one-time or continuing basis, which may not be detected for a period of time. In addition, the costs of maintaining adequate protection against such threats, as they develop in the future (or as legal requirements related to data security increase) could be material. We have been subject to cyber incidents in the past, including an attack that temporarily disrupted access to certain of our systems and an incident involving identity theft through the unauthorized access of one of our third-party service provider's information systems. Neither of these incidents individually or in the aggregate resulted in any material liability to us, any material damage to our reputation, or any material disruption to our operations. However, as a result of a widespread increase in the frequency and number of cyber-attacks, we expect that we will continue to be the target of additional and increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks and data security breaches, and the safeguards we have designed to help prevent these incidents from occurring may not be successful. Any further increase in the frequency or scope of cyber-attacks may exacerbate these data security risks. If we experience additional cyber-attacks or data security breaches in the future, we could suffer material liabilities, our reputation could be materially damaged, and our operations could be materially disrupted.