robert toll

Location: We’re probably in a recession, and a big culprit is the housing market—prices were much too high, and now they’re really sinking. As the nation’s largest luxury home builder, do you feel guilty?

Mr. Toll: I feel guilty for not being more cautious and recognizing that we had to be on thin ice because things had been so good for so long. [But], by 2000, we should have entered the next down cycle, on an ordinary basis. But we didn’t. And if I had become cautious then, my company would have missed the great ride that it took in ’05 and ’06. In ’05 we made $800 million plus—net, net, net!  read more »

Tomorrow's Observer will have an extensive interview with luxury home mogul Robert Toll, whose eponymous firm is building in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Here's Mr. Toll on the housing crisis:

The reason capitalism works is that one of the basic instincts of human nature is greed; everybody wants to get bigger, better, more, you know? And there are very few of us that walk around all day long with the thought of being our brother’s keeper.