Research and Application 3-35 1. Toll Brothers succeeds first and foremost because of its product leadership customer value proposition. The annual report mentions in numerous places that Toll Brothers focuses on Luxury Homes and Communities and high quality construction. Page 8 of the 10-K says ‘We believe our marketing strategy, which emphasizes our more expensive “Estate” and “Executive” lines of homes, has enhanced our reputation as a builder-developer of high-quality upscale housing.” Page 2 of the 10-K says “We are the only publicly traded national home builder to have won all three of the industry’s highest honors: America’s Best Builder (1996), the National Housing Quality Award (1995), and Builder of the Year (1988).” Toll Brothers seeks to realize manufacturing efficiencies for the benefit of its shareholders, but its customers choose Toll Brothers for its leadership position in the luxury home market.

2. Toll Brothers faces numerous business risks as described in pages 10-11 of the 10-K. Students may mention other risks beyond those specifically mentioned in the 10-K. Here are four risks faced by Toll Brothers with suggested control activities:

* Risk: Downturns in the real estate market could adversely impact Toll Brothers’ sales. Control activities: Diversify geographic markets served so that a downturn in one region of the country will not cripple the company. * Risk: Large sums of money may be spent buying land that, geologically speaking, cannot support home construction. For example, soil conditions may be too unstable to support the weight of a home. Control activities: Pay engineers to certify that targeted properties can support home construction. * Risk: Raw material costs may increase thereby depressing profit margins. Control activities: Vertically integrate by operating manufacturing facilities (see page 12 of the 10-K for a discussion of Toll Brothers’ manufacturing facilities). Buying raw materials at wholesale prices cuts out a middleman in the value chain. In addition, Toll Brothers can purchase raw materials in large volumes to realize purchase price discounts.

Research and Application 3-35 (continued) * Risk: Subcontractors may perform substandard work resulting in warranty claims and dissatisfied customers. Control activities: Employ a project manager within each community who serves in a quality assurance capacity.

3. Toll Brothers would use job-order costing because its homes are unique rather than homogeneous. Each home being built would be a considered a job. Toll Brothers’ standard floor plans differ from one another particularly across its main product lines such as Move-Up, Empty Nester, Active Adult, Urban In-Fill, High-Density Suburban, and Second Homes (see pages 5 and 9 of the annual report). In 2004, Toll Brothers introduced 87 new home models (see page 4 of the 10-K).

Beyond the fact that Toll Brothers offers a wide variety of floor plans, homes are further distinguished from one another by customer upgrades that add an average of $103,000 to the price of a home (see page 1 of the annual report). Upgrades include items such as additional garages, guest suites, extra fireplaces, and finished lofts (see page 4 of 10-K).

4. Examples of direct materials used in Toll Brothers’ manufacturing facilities include lumber and plywood for wall panels, roofs, and floor trusses, as well as other items such as windows and doors (see page 12 of the 10-K). Examples of direct materials used at the home sites include shingles, exterior finishes such as stone, stucco, siding, or brick, kitchen cabinets, cement for the foundation, bathroom fixtures, etc.

The standard bill of materials (e.g., prior to considering a specific customer’s upgrade requests) for each home would differ. For example, differences in the square footage of homes would drive numerous differences in their bills of materials. Bigger homes would require more lumber, sheet rock, electrical wiring, etc. Bills of materials are also likely to differ across geographic regions of the country. For example, homes in Florida typically do not have basements whereas homes in New England are likely to have basements. Front porches may be more prevalent in South Carolina than in Ohio. Different grades of windows and insulation may be used in homes in the North than in the South.

Research and Application 3-35 (continued) 5. Toll Brothers incurs two types of direct labor costs. The company employs its own direct laborers in its manufacturing facilities in Morrisville, Pa. and Emporia, Va. The costs of these workers can be traced to specific items such as roof trusses that can in turn be traced to particular houses. Work at the home sites is performed by subcontractors. The labor cost embedded in a subcontractor’s fixed price contract is directly traceable to the home being built. However, the direct laborers are not employed by Toll Brothers. Toll Brothers would not use employee time tickets at its home sites because the subcontractors are not employees of Toll Brothers, Inc. and they are paid a fixed price that is unaffected by the amount of hours worked.

6. There are numerous examples of overhead costs mentioned in the annual report and 10-K. Some examples are: land acquisition costs, land development costs (e.g., grading and clearing), road construction costs, underground utility installation costs, swimming pools, golf courses, tennis courts, marinas, community entrances, model home costs (including construction, furnishing and staffing), and project manager salaries. These costs are incurred to create housing communities but they cannot be easily and conveniently traced to specific homes.

7. It appears that Toll Brothers does not use cost-plus pricing to establish selling prices for its base models. Page 8 of the 10-K says “In determining the prices for our homes, we utilize, in addition to management’s extensive experience, an internally developed value analysis program that compares our homes with homes offered by other builders in each local marketing area.” In other words, the value to the customer and competitive conditions determine prices—not the cost of building a particular home.

Page 5 of the annual report says “When there is strong demand, we benefit from exceptional pricing power because we have greater ability to raise prices than those builders who target buyers on tight budgets: it’s easier to hit doubles, triples and home runs selling to luxury buyers.” This quote implies that pricing is driven by the customers’ willingness and ability to pay and not by the cost of building a particular house.

Research and Application 3-35 (continued) 8. Based on information contained in the 10-K, it appears that Toll Brothers assigns overhead to cost objects in two ways. First, page 16 of the 10-K says “Land, land development and related costs (both incurred and estimated to be incurred in the future) are amortized to the cost of homes closed based upon the total number of homes to be constructed in each community.” In other words, each home is assigned an equal share of overhead costs. Page 16 also says, “The estimated land, common area development and related costs of master planned communities (including the cost of golf courses, net of their estimated residual value) are allocated to individual communities within a master planned community on a relative sales value basis.” In other words, higher priced communities within a master planned community are assigned a greater portion of master planned community overhead costs.

In master planned communities, the allocation of overhead appears to take place in two stages. First, the overhead costs common to all communities contained with the master planned community are assigned to communities based on relative sales value. Then, all overhead costs related to a particular community within the master planned community are assigned equally to each home site.

The company needs to assign overhead costs to homes so that it can derive a cost of sales number for the income statement and an inventory number for the balance sheet. Page 29 of the annual report shows the components of the company’s ending inventory balance of $3.878 billion. Inventoriable costs include land and land development costs ($1.242 billion), construction in progress ($2.178 billion), sample homes and sales offices ($208 million), land deposits and costs of future development ($237 million), and other ($12 million). Construction in progress is similar to work in process for a manufacturing company. Overhead costs (as well as direct costs) flow through the construction in progress account and hit cost of home sales when a customer has a closing and takes possession of the home.