Housebuilder’s profits up in buoyant market

Persimmon pleased with customer activity

Housebuilding giant Persimmon has notched up a healthy rise in full-year profits as it pointed to a “confident” housing market, despite concerns over Brexit.

The Charles Church owner said pretax profits rose 23% to £774.8 million in the year to December 31, while revenue rose 8% to £3.1 billion.

“Despite some understandable caution being exercised by consumers and corporates alike during the period ahead of the EU referendum, the result created an immediate and significant uncertainty in the markets,” Persimmon said.

“However, the vast majority of the group’s customers remained focused on exchanging contracts and completing their new home purchases.”

Chairman Nicholas Wrigley added customer activity in the early weeks of the 2017 spring season has been “encouraging”.

The company said of current trading: “The UK new-build housing market remains confident with customer demand for new homes supported by compelling mortgage products.

“We are pleased with customer activity in the first eight weeks of the 2017 spring season.

“Visitors to our sites are circa 7% ahead year on year.

“We have experienced a normal week-on-week strengthening of the market on entering the 2017 spring selling season.”

Buyer demand and house prices have been surprisingly resilient since the referendum, thanks largely to rockbottom borrowing costs after the Bank of England halved interest rates to 0.25% in August.

The company has projects in Tayside and Fife.