Bovis wary of false dawn in housing sector
BOVIS Homes chief executive David Ritchie said the housebuilder has enjoyed a positive start to the spring selling season but cautioned against talk of a recovery in the mortgage market.
Ritchie said while government measures to boost mortgage lending are beginning to work, he was cautious about “calling a false dawn” and said that mortgage numbers were still well below pre-crisis levels.
“Until we start to see hard numbers coming out of the government’s Funding For Lending support…it is difficult to call it an improvement,” he said.
The housebuilder posted a 69 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to £54.1m in the year to 31 December boosted by a five per cent increase in its average selling prices to £170,700.
Its performance was also lifted by a 15 per cent rise in completions to 2,355 homes compared with 2,045 last year. Bovis also increased its number of active sales outlets to 82 compared with 73 in 2011.
The company has already delivered 350 private reservations in the first eight weeks of 2013, an increase of nine per cent on the first two months of 2012.