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PRIVACY
Commercial Property

Persimmon profits jump 64% as housing demand drives trading

The housebuilder has also now paid a dividend of 235p per share to shareholders after seeing the surge in demand

A Persimmon Homes development(Image: Perthshire Advertiser)

Housebuilder Persimmon has hailed a “robust” half-year performance as profits rose on the back of a surge in activity in the housing market.

The York based business posted a pre-tax profit increase of 64% to £480.1m for the six months to June 30 on the back of group revenues of £1.84bn, up on last year's £1.19bn.

It added that its average private sales rate was around 30% higher than the same period a year earlier, when trading had been impacted from site shutdowns during the pandemic.

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The FTSE 100 firm, which was founded in the 1970s by Northumberland landowner Duncan Davidson, said it expects to achieve roughly 10% growth in sale completions for the whole of 2021.

The company said it expects the fundamentals of the º£½ÇÊÓÆµ housing market to remain positive amid “improving consumer confidence, low interest rates, and mortgage lenders that are keen to support customers to buy a home of their own”.

It said that around 50% of agreements with owner-occupiers were with first time buyers, many of whom have been boosted by increased savings during the pandemic.

Persimmon also hailed forward sales for around 6,500 homes to private homeowners, at an average selling price of approximately £253,000.