Posts Tagged ‘completions’
Property coming to market at record low levels
Despite record levels of search activity on its website this month, estate agency Rightmove reports that the number of new homes being put up for sale has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded.
More than 44 million property searches were carried out on Rightmove’s site during the first ten days of 2012, a 27% increase compared with the first ten days of 2010.
However difficulties in obtaining a mortgage, the shortage of property on the market and a general lack of consumer confidence is deterring potential sellers from marketing their properties.
Estate agents are, on average, marketing less than one new property per week per branch and there are also fewer properties already on the market than there were in the same period last year.
Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, said: “The market is stuck in a low transaction volume pit that will be hard to escape from without the mortgage funding to satisfy what appears to be strong pent-up demand.”
Rightmove suggests that first-time buyers with good deposits will fare best in the current market, along with house-owners with enough equity to trade up and people selling properties with a unique selling point.
The ‘losers’ in the current market will be people living in rented accommodation and sellers who are unwilling or unable to reduce the price of their property.
Recent news suggests that house-builders are benefiting from a resilient market for new-build properties.
Bovis Homes expects profits to rise significantly this year, helped by an increase in forward bookings of more than a third.
Overall completions in 2011 are expected to be up 8 per cent to 2,045 homes.
Galliford Try reported a 59 per cent increase in completed sales to 1,352 in the second half of 2011, compared with the previous year.
Taylor Wimpey returns to full-year profit
Taylor Wimpey, which was formed by the merger of Taylor Woodrow and George Wimpey, today said it had returned to profitability but remains cautious. The housebuilder, which is the country’s third largest by value, said pre-tax profit before exceptional items came in at £75.1 million for the 2010 year – against a loss of £96.1 [...]
Housebuilder Persimmon hit by reduced sales activity in December
December’s heavy snowfall had a negative impact on many companies and housebuilder Persimmon was no exception. The housebuilder, which is the UK’s second largest by market value, said sales activity fell by 50% in December but said it had been an encouraging start to the year. The company reported a considerable increase in underlying profits [...]
Taylor Wimpey: UK housing market “relatively robust”
Taylor Wimpey has reported “relatively robust” UK housing market conditions over the first half of 2010, having achieved 4,804 legal completions, up slightly from 4,702 a year earlier.
The group sold 3,925 homes to private buyers and 866 to affordable housing providers, with the remainder joint ventures.
Encouragingly, the developer’s cancellation rate scaled back to 16% in [...]
Mortgage constraints & economic uncertainty bedevil new housing market
Barratt Developments completed 11,377 homes in the year to the end of June, down from 13,277 in the previous 12 month period.
Private completions fell to 9,455, compared with 11,133 in 2008/09; social housing completions stood at 1,870 as against 2,069 and joint ventures were down from 75 to 52.
However, the developer’s cancellation rate settled out [...]