15th Sep 2005 10:26
15 September 2005Trading UpdateIn anticipation of a series of meetings, which the Company has arranged withcertain US institutional investors, scheduled for the week commencing 19September, the Board of Countrywide has decided to update the market as to theCompany's current trading and prospects. As a consequence, the Board hasapproved the following release.Although trading conditions experienced in July and August are often muchquieter, we are pleased to report that the gradual improvement in tradingconditions, referred to in the Chairman's statement at the time of theannouncement of our Interim Results, on 11 August 2005, has continued. Ourrecent experience supports the following statement which has been extractedfrom the August Halifax House Price Index report dated 7 September 2005: "¢â‚¬¦.Market activity is improving somewhat. The number of mortgage approvals tofund house purchase continued its upward trend in July, according to the latestBank of England figures¢â‚¬¦."In addition, whilst residential property prices have remained broadly stable,commission rates obtained across the enlarged agency network have continued toimprove. In normal years, trading in September and October would be expected tobe reasonably strong. We have therefore authorised our senior agency managementteam to marginally increase local press advertising in the next two months. Wewill be seeking to further grow our pipeline of sales arranged - which at theend of August was ‚£74.2million.The level of estate agency activity witnessed in August was similarly matchedby retail financial product sales, and also by the level of new clientreferrals to our conveyancing division. However, as previously discussed, thisdivision continues to be affected by capacity issues associated with an ongoingI.T. systems upgrade. Management continue to focus on resolving these problemswhich are a cause of immense frustration.Volumes of remortgage conveyancing cases continue to grow and be successfullyserviced by the new IT systems installed last year.Activity and productivity at Countrywide Surveyors and Securemove similarlycontinue to improve but neither business is yet operating at full capacitylevels.Page impressions received by Rightmove in August represented a record month. Webelieve this is further evidence that there is currently more interest in thehousing market than has been the case for fifteen months.Director/Company SecretaryCountrywide plcENDCOUNTRYWIDE PLCRelated Shares:
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