Builders Persimmon and Telford Homes hail booming demand for new houses
Two of Britain’s listed builders have reported booming demand for new homes as buyers rush to get on the housing ladder.
FTSE 100 giant Persimmon, the UK’s biggest housebuilder, says sales per site in the first 15 weeks of the year were 25 per cent higher than this time last year. It has now sold 5,000 homes under the Coalition’s Help to Buy scheme which offers buyers of new properties loans to boost their deposits.
Chief executive Jeff Fairburn welcomed the Government’s decision to extend the scheme from 2016 to 2020 – saying rising demand for new homes would encourage the firm to increase building.
‘It’s working very well,’ he said. ‘The lenders are supportive of it and it really does deliver affordability to the buyer. It is also giving builders the confidence to continue to invest.’
Persimmon, which trades as Charles Church and Westbury Partnerships, said forward sales were 35 per cent higher than a year ago at £1.87billion. It is planning to return £1.9billion to shareholders by 2021 – including hundreds of millions of pounds for its top managers.
Persimmon shares rose 10p to 1,275p.
Shares in smaller rival Telford Homes also edged higher, up 4p to 341p, after it said profits for the year to the end of March 2014 had more than doubled.
The company, which focuses on London, said it expected profits to double again by 2018 as it takes advantage of the capital’s red hot housing market.
Official figures this week showed the average price of a home in the UK has risen 9.1pc in the past year to £253,000. Prices in London are up 17.7 per cent to £458,000.
Chief executive Jon Di-Stefano said: ‘Telford Homes is operating in the right locations where customers both want to live and can afford to live.’
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