Toll Brothers CEO Blames Media

The Street.com reports:

Enter Robert Toll, CEO of the estimable Toll Brothers, flapping his gums about how media reports about falling house prices are scaring customers away from buying.

Said Toll, while announcing anemic preliminary quarterly results:

"We believe there is significant pent-up demand which is growing. When we have held promotions, buyers have come out to play and put down deposits. Often, however, a lack of confidence in the direction of home prices overcomes their enthusiasm and they don't take the next step of going to contract. They, like all of us, read the papers and watch TV, both of which keep advising them that home prices are declining."

This has become quite a go-to line for the leader of an overextended company, one whose products customers can't afford based on carrying costs. Last quarter, while reporting the company's worst results in two decades, he said:

"Ceaseless talk of a recession continues to dampen the mood of consumers. This drumbeat, coupled with concerns over mortgages, the direction of home prices, and foreclosures has kept pent-up demand on the sidelines."

"Pent-up demand" can't absorb the massive supply of inventory.Here's a chart at Toll Brothers vs. the S&P 500.