Post-election boom buoys property firms

THE property market has recovered from its pre-election jitters, in a boost for housebuilder Taylor Wimpey along with estate agents Foxtons and Rightmove.

People who put a sale or purchase on hold are now back in the market, according to Taylor Wimpey’s chief executive Peter Redfern ( pictured).

He said activity stepped up after the election. ‘our sales rates are about 10pc up on last year,’ he added.

Taylor Wimpey’s pre-tax profit rose by a third to £238m in the first half. The price of its new homes increased by 9.2pc to £225,000 and it is able to build 14,000 homes a year.

Redfern also welcomed the planning reforms announced by the Chancellor in the Summer Budget this month, designed to speed up the building of new homes.

The FTSE 100 builder also said it will pay out £300m this month in special dividends. That is a 20pc increase and works out at 9.22p a share, on top of the interim dividend of 0.49p a share.

The group will pay out £600m to shareholders in total across three annual cash returns. Shares rose 2.7p to 185.4p.

Estate agents were also benefitting from post-election relief.

Rightmove said the number of visits to its website lifted by 17pc to a record 110 million a month and the number of leads it generated for estate agents jumped 14pc to an average of 4.2m a month. Pre-tax profit rose 13pc to £66.6m on revenues up 15.7pc to £93.1m.

Rightmove also raised its interim dividend by 23pc to 16p a share and shares jumped 184p to 3574p.

Half-year turnover at Foxtons slipped 2.3pc to £71.1m and pre-tax profit fell more than a fifth to £18.1m but it expects a better second half of the year.

Chief executive nick Budden said: ‘With the election uncertainty now passed we have seen an increase in activity across our branch network.’

Foxtons shares leapt 16.4p to 239.4p.