Luxury home builder Toll Brothers Inc posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit on higher margins, and indicated a possible uptick in home deliveries and pricing in 2012 based on an increase in backlog and community count.

The company forecast 2,400-3,200 deliveries in 2012 at an average price of $550,000-$575,000 per home. In fiscal 2011, it reported home building deliveries of about 2611 units.

2011 backlog stood at $981.1 million and 1,667 units, an increase of 15 percent in dollars and 12 percent in units. It sold 215 communities in 2011, compared to 195 a year ago.

For the fourth quarter ended Oct 31, Toll Brothers reported earnings of $15.0 million, or 9 cents a share, compared with $50.5 million, or 30 cents a share a year ago.

The latest quarter includes a tax expense of $200,000, compared to a $59.9 million net tax benefit a year ago.

Revenue rose 6 percent to $427.8 million.

Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 5 cents a share, on revenue of $422.9 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

(Reporting by Bijoy Koyitty in Bangalore; Editing by Supriya Kurane)