Chief executive Pete Redfern will tell shareholders when they meet at the company’s agm in London this morning that visitor levels are on the up and confidence is rising.
Improvements are led by London and the southeast although mortgage lending has still not increased and continues to inhibit the market.
According to his script, Mr Redfern will tell shareholders: “Against a background of positive sentiment towards the housing market, we have seen an increase in visitor levels and reservations, driven by improved customer confidence and helped in recent weeks by the government's Budget announcements. This, together with the quality of our locations and the inherent value in our landbank, is enabling us to drive improvement across all of our key performance measures."
The value of Taylor Wimpey’s total order book is £1.2bn, up from £1.1bn this time last year. Since the year-end, the company has improved both pricing and margin in its order book.
It is currently operating from 311 outlets, compared to 304 at this time last year.
As previously announced, former SOGAT print union boss Baroness Brenda Dean is today standing down as a non-executive director of Taylor Wimpey, to be replaced by Baroness Margaret Ford, whose NED portfolio includes the chair of May Gurney, which is currently the subject of a takeover battle between Kier and Costain.
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