Forward orders also ahead of pre-pandemic 2019 levels, housebuilder says
Persimmon has reported strong demand for its homes in the first few months of 2021, leaving it with forward sales of 拢3bn 鈥� nearly 25% ahead of last year.
In a trading update to the City today ahead of its annual general meeting, the 拢3.3bn turnover housebuilder said that weekly sales per site were not only 鈥渨ell ahead of 2020鈥� 鈥� which would be expected given that the comparable period includes a month of the 2020 lockdown 鈥� but were also 17% up on the sales achieved in the equivalent period in 2019.
Similarly, it said that the 拢3bn of forward sales, 23% up on last year, was also an 11% improvement on the same metric in 2019.
The builder, which prior to 2020 faced a series of scandals and the , said it was successfully rolling out its new unified build quality programme, and continued to appoint independent quality controllers across the group. Persimmon aims to double the number of these by the end of the year.
The firm also repeated its pledge to deliver volumes in both the first and second halves of this calendar year at around the level seen in the first half of 2019 鈥� equating to completions of around 15,000 homes.
This would equate to a 10% increase on volume in the but still be some way below the 15,855 homes built in 2019.
The firm said the number of sites it was operating on remained around 15% lower than in 2019, in order to mitigate 鈥渢he risks associated with the cycle鈥�. However it is currently investing in land in order to deliver 鈥渇urther growth into 2022鈥�. It said it had spent 拢140m so far this year on 6,000 plots across 29 different sites.
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