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For Whom the Bell Tolls

By Jim Cramer

 About this article:
 Housing bears, including those who are endlessly focused on the now almost imperceptible decline in the price of housing nationwide, please do not read the Toll Brothers release this morning. That's because the key metrics -- net signed contracts versus the depressed 2008 numbers and the inflated 2007 numbers -- were amazing. To wit, Toll exceeded 2007's fiscal Q4 net signed contracts by 17% in unit terms and 18% in dollars. You read that right -- exceeded! Not only that, but it was done with fewer selling communities, meaning that prices HELD, or, if anything, INCREASED. How can that jive with the downbeat housing reporters who keep harping and carping on about housing prices going down. This stuff is all high end, so the notion that the next crisis is the luxury housing component because of defaults simply can't be true, or Toll could not...

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