Toll Brothers Incorporated, the largest American builder of luxury houses, boosted next year’s profit forecast after reporting a 93% increase in fiscal fourth-quarter earnings because of record home sales.

Net income in 2005 will rise at least 40%, more than the 30% projected in the third quarter, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.-based Toll said yesterday in a statement. The company’s stock gained almost 13%, the biggest increase in more than four years.

Toll’s homes sold at an average price of $603,048, more than double the national mean. Its main customers include baby boomers, the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 who are now in their peak earning years.

“These wealthy baby boomers are deciding, ‘I want this big house, and I want it exactly the way I want it, with lots of luxuries,”‘ said the director of research at JMP Securities, James Wilson. “They’ve owned real estate before, they’ve built up lots of equity, and now they are building their dream home.”

Net income in the three months ended October 31 rose to $180.6 million, or $2.22 a share, from $93.4 million, or $1.19, a year ago, Toll said. The average estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial was $1.97 a share.

The company said profit next year may rise to about $6.83, based on Toll’s estimate of an average of 83.8 million shares outstanding in fiscal 2005. The Thomson Financial survey estimate was $6.15 a share.

Toll’s stock rose $6.88 to a record $60.99 as of 4 p.m. in composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange. It was the biggest increase since August 7, 2000. The shares have advanced 53% this year, outpacing the Standard & Poor’s Super composite Homebuilding Index’s 23% rise.

“The demand for our product remains unabated and unsated,” said the chief executive, Robert Toll, 64, in an interview.

The shares of other home builders also gained. Lennar Corporation rose $2.88, or 6.5%, to $47.15; Centex Corporation increased $3.59,or 7%,to $54.60, and D.R. Horton Incorporated jumped $2.16, or 6.1%, to $37.81.

Toll is building homes in 21 states including Nevada, which saw a 36% gain in prices during the third quarter from a year earlier, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Toll also builds in California, where prices increased 27%, and in New Jersey, where prices grew 19%, according to the Ofheo report.

The number of Toll’s selling communities, or active developments, probably will increase 9.1% to 240 by the end of fiscal 2005, Toll said on a conference call with investors and analysts.

The biggest home plan on the company’s Web site is the San Marino, a 5,848-square-foot home with four bedrooms. It’s almost triple the average size of a new American home. The house has a two-story entry rotunda, a library, six baths, and four garage bays.

American consumers have been encouraged to purchase homes as the rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage averaged an estimated 5.9% this year, near the 38-year low of 5.8% that it fell to in 2003, according to mortgage financier Freddie Mac.

The housing industry is forecast to sell 1.2 million new houses this year, up 10% from 2003’s record, according to Freddie Mac.