Housebuilder says it will sell 5% more homes in 2011

Housebuilder Bellway has said it will beat profit forecasts on the back of a strong start to the spring selling season.

Real-time Share Price
Real-time Share PriceAnnouncing interim results showing profits up 26% to 拢24m, it said it now expected to increase the number of homes sold in the full year by 5% on 2010. Last autumn it said a good result would be to match 2010鈥檚 sales.

Finance director Alistair Leitch said: 鈥淭he highlight is that we鈥檙e seeing a return to the traditional spring selling pattern. Around October last year we were concerned it wouldn鈥檛 happen, but since January we鈥檝e seen an increase.

鈥淚t looks like people have taken stock of where they are in their jobs, and those that have got reassurance are pressing ahead with purchasing. For all buyers apart from first time buyers the market鈥檚 quite good at the moment, with low mortgage rates.鈥�

Leitch said the 5% increase in home sales on last year would bring with it a 鈥渃onsequent increase in profits.鈥�

The number of sales per site per week has increase from 0.43 between August and January, to almost 0.6 since then. Bellway is now operating at 200 sites, and plans to bring 10 to the market in the next few weeks.

Bellway sold 2,332 homes in the first six months of the financial year, up 4% on 2010, generating turnover of 拢408m, up 13%.

Leitch also welcomed the chancellor鈥檚 announcement of 拢250m scheme to help first time buyers purchase new build homes. He said the announcement could provide a boost to income in the next financial year, with Bellway having sold 800 homes through the previous scheme run by Labour.

Topics