Toll Brothers (TOL -0.52%) shares fell after the company reported 12% growth in its fourth quarter. Although that's certainly not a bad number, it came in under the company's expectations... but only slightly.

What makes the market so demanding and picky in this sector? Perhaps it's because some investors are spooked -- after all, the luxury-home segment is again nearing its peak numbers of 2007, just before the bubble popped and the market collapsed.

In this clip, MarketFoolery host Chris Hill and Bill Barker explore the market's relationship with the segment, and what it means that its numbers are so close to those of 2007.

A full transcript follows the video.

 

This podcast was recorded on Dec. 8, 2015.

Chris Hill: The luxury-homebuilder Toll Brothers shares' falling after fourth quarter profits rose 12%. That was, however, lower than expected. I don't know... is there nitpicking going on here? This seems like a good quarter. This is a stock that's had a good year relative to the market. This is a luxury homebuilder that's building luxury homes. I don't know, this seems a little bit like, "Eh, we missed by a couple pennies."

Bill Barker: Yeah. There's not a lot of enthusiasm for the luxury homebuilders. I say, that is somebody who helps manage one of those funds that has a different luxury homebuilder. Good numbers show up, and the stock doesn't move. And that's been the case. One of the reasons why the stocks aren't doing all that well is, this is a heavily cyclical thing.

Homebuilding, to give you an idea -- Toll Brothers is only now getting back to the revenue that it had in 2007. Maybe that's not surprising. It was doing about $4 billion-plus a year as of 2007, went down to the $1 billion a year, and it was there for '09, '10, '11. It's only now, in 2015, getting back to that level. Still not up where it was in 2006, where it was at $6 billion. It's a long way back, and it's a cyclical company, and you don't price cyclical things with a lot of enthusiasm.

So, good quarter, but not up to expectations, and that's what happens. You miss expectations, you come down. That's how it works.

Hill: I don't know about you, but over the last few months, I'll see headlines, or just a blurb at the bottom of the TV screen if I'm watching CNBC or something like that, relative to housing. Whether it's housing data or homebuilders or housing starts, whatever it is. And over the last few months, I've seen more and more references to 2006 and 2007. As in, "Oh, this was the best quarter since 2007!"

And I just instantly have this gut reaction of, "Oh! I remember 2007! That's right before the housing market collapsed!" And it just makes me, I don't know, a little twitchy with some of the housing data. It doesn't seem like we are nearly back where we were, but I don't know. You look at this more closely than I do.

Barker: Home prices, and it depends on the market, some are higher than they were back then; but y'know, things bottomed out, and it took a long time to get back. Hey, oil's about back to where it was in 2008. It's good reason to be cautious. This is not something we want to see a bubble in. I don't think there's a bubble in housing at the moment, but there probably will be someday. They appear.

It's a good business. Toll Brothers is getting back to where it was close to the peak of its business. It's not there yet, but it'll get there. And in between now and then, it'll make some profits for shareholders.