Excluding write-downs, pretax income was $13.3 million, compared with $3.7 million in the 2009 third quarter.
Toll's report was the only upbeat note in two days of bad real estate news that began Tuesday with a sour report on July sales of previously owned homes.
Sales of newly constructed homes in July hit an annual rate of 276,000, a level not seen since the Census Bureau began record-keeping in 1963. Numbers were down 12.4 percent from June, and 32.4 percent from July 2009.
"It might be easier to list the names of the buyers than the numbers of homes sold," said Joel L. Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors, of Holland, Bucks County.
Economist Patrick Newport of IHS Global Insight Inc., of Lexington, Mass., said that in recent months, it had been difficult to get a good reading on the state of the housing market because the tax credits for home buyers made the numbers hard to interpret."
"Now that the credits are behind us, the dust is settling, and the news is not good," Newport said.
National Association of Home Builders chief economist David Crowe, while sticking to the group's prediction of increasing sales later this year, described the market as being in a "holding pattern."
The association "does not project that a double-dip recession is in the cards," said Crowe, who is based in Washington.
Buyers' reluctance was reflected in Wednesday's weekly Mortgage Bankers Association report, which showed that 82.4 percent of all mortgage applications last week were from homeowners refinancing to rates averaging 4.5 percent, rather than folks buying homes.
At the current pace of sales, the 210,000 new homes on the market at the end of July represented a 9.1-month supply, up from eight months in June.
