16th Apr 2015 06:30
LONDON (Alliance News) - Housebuilder Persimmon PLC Thursday said 2015 has got off to a strong start, with private sales rates and average selling prices continuing to rise after the strong growth it reported in 2014, although it warned the industry is struggling to get new planning permissions ahead of the General Election.
The company said total forward sales revenue in the first 15 weeks of 2015, including legal completions taken so far this year, are up 7% at GBP2.00 billion, compared with GBP1.87 billion in the year earlier period.
It said its weekly private sales rate per site is up 6% on the year, and it has sold 7,375 homes forward at an average selling price of about GBP207,900, up 4% on the year.
Persimmon has now opened 85 of the 120 new sites it had planned to open in the first half of 2015, meaning it is now currently developing 385 active outlets across the UK.
It also said the land market remains favourable for new investment at attractive returns, but it did warn of the impact of the uncertainty ahead of next month's UK General Election in getting planning permission for new sites.
"As anticipated, in line with past experience it has become increasingly difficult to secure planning consents for sites as May's General Election approaches. While we would expect such delays to be short term in nature, they are hindering the expansion in the number of active outlets required by the housebuilding industry to support an increase in the volume of newly built homes delivered to the market. Nevertheless, as a result of our strong prior investment in new land we remain confident of having circa 400 active outlets open by the middle of the year," Persimmon said in a statement.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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