Luxury builder Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL) plans a nationwide housing sale, the company said Tuesday.

It's a move showing that, while buyers might be tiptoeing back into the market, even strong builders with ample cash still have to work for deals as the housing market looks towards recovery from the worst downturn in decades.

The "National Fall Sales Event" will be offered at its 215 selling communities - including New York City-area condos, which have been excluded from previous deals - from Saturday until Oct. 4.

The deals range from half-off options, including custom tile and appliances, to mortgage-specials, including paid closing costs. The Illinois and Michigan divisions, for example, are offering a 2/1 mortgage-rate buy down for a 30-year fixed-rate loan. The first-year's rate is 2.875%, followed by 3.875% for year two. It locks in at 4.875% for the loan's remainder.

While Horsham, Penn.-based Toll's latest offer doesn't directly lower prices, such specials erode a company's gross margin. And in the case of mortgage-rate buy downs, builders make an upfront cash payment to the investor who buys the mortgage. The buy down is treated as a cost of sale for the builder.

"Whatever the company wants to call it, its prices are effectively coming down because it's got to move product," said Vicki Bryan, an analyst with Gimme Credit. "Toll also is chronically oversupplied ... and old inventory is less profitable than new homes built today."

In its third-quarter earnings conference call on Aug. 27, Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Toll told investors that the builder was raising prices in about 40% of its communities and that "the rest" were seeing price stability.

"We're fairly well convinced that the bottom has been turned, and, therefore, we are not increasing incentives or lowering prices anywhere," Toll said.

While incentives continue, they're getting smaller, explained Kira McCarron, the builder's chief marketing officer.

That hasn't yet shown up in results. At July 31, the end of the fiscal third quarter, incentives were an average $84,000, or 12.6% of the home's sales value, up from an average $57,000, or 8.5%, a year earlier, according to financial statements.

Toll is next scheduled to report results on Dec. 10.

-Dawn Wotapka, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2193; dawn.wotapka@dowjones.com