TOL Toll Brothers Inc

Luxury home-builder Toll Brothers Inc. on Tuesday reported a 32% slide in profit for its July quarter and weaker-than-expected revenue, though signed contracts for homes jumped amid strength in California.

Toll Brothers, with its higher-end offerings, has expected to benefit from recent improvements to job and wage growth, which it says drive stronger housing demand.

"An improving employment landscape, three consecutive quarters of accelerating household formations, pent-up demand, increasing rents and still attractive affordability are supporting the for-sale housing market's steady recovery," Executive Chairman Robert Toll said in a news release.

"We believe that, as the job picture continues to improve, greater demand should lead to rising home prices, which should encourage more people to sell their existing homes and move up or add a second home," Mr. Toll said.

Toll has said its customers benefit from higher home prices, as many of its customers are selling their homes and upgrading.

In the latest quarter, signed contracts rose 30% in value from a year earlier to $1.23 billion, with an average price of $834,000, up 16% from a year earlier. Toll attributed the growth to California contracts.

But home building deliveries slid 1.7% to 1,419 units.

In all, for the quarter ended July 31, Toll's profit fell to $66.7 million, or 36 cents a share, from $97.7 million, or 53 cents a share, a year earlier.

The quarter included $18 million in impairments, compared to $6 million in the prior-year period.

Revenue ticked down 2.7% to $1.03 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast 49 cents a share in earnings on $1.05 billion in revenue.

Write to Chelsey Dulaney at Chelsey.Dulaney@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 25, 2015 07:45 ET (11:45 GMT)

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