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Taylor Wimpey welcomes housing market upturn

4 Jul 13 House-builder Taylor Wimpey has heralded an upturn in the market after a strong spring selling season.

Chief executive Pete Redfern
Chief executive Pete Redfern

The company said that there had been “a return to the more traditional seasonal patterns” during the first half of 2013 and the market had shown “measurable improvement for the first time since the downturn of 2007/08”.

Business was particularly strong in the Midlands, as well as the southeast.

Chief executive Pete Redfern said: “We have welcomed signs of significant improvement in the housing market in the first six months of 2013 where we have seen increased consumer confidence, underpinned by both generally improved access to and affordability of mortgage finance and by the recent government measures. This has enabled us to continue our investment in local communities across the UK and play a leading role in the creation of new homes, employment opportunities and infrastructure."

Consequently, Taylor Wimpey is looking at a UK operating profit margin of more than 13% for the first half of 2013, up from 11.2% for the same period last year.

Average private net reservation rate was 0.67 per outlet per week, up from 0.60 last year.

Home completions totalled 5,192 units (H1 2012: 5,083). Of this, 4,229 were private completions (H1 2012: 4,137), 930 were affordable (H1 2012: 893) and 33 were joint venture completions (H1 2012: 53).

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The average selling price of completions also increased from £176,000 to £187,000.

The total order book, excluding completions to date and joint ventures, stands at £1.3 billion as at 30 June 2013 (1 July 2012: £960 million), up 35%, and reflects the continued strong private order book. The total order book represents 7,101 homes (1 July 2012: 5,720 homes).

More than 1,000 Taylor Wimpey customers have taken advantage of the government’s Help to Buy scheme since its April introduction with a further 232 currently going through the qualification process with the Home Buy agents.

Earlier this week Persimmon also gave credit to the scheme for an upturn, with more than 1,100 Help to Buy reservations.

Redrow has also seen strong growth in the past six months, with group revenue up 26% and the number of homes legally completed up 15%.

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MPU
MPU

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