Taylor Wimpey on track amid housing market uncertainty

Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey has said it has maintained strong sales despite “increasing customer caution” due to political and economic turmoil over recent months.

In a trading update to the city, the firm said it was on track to produce expected levels of profit at its December year end, albeit from a larger turnover at a lower margin than previously anticipated.

The £4bn-turnover listed housebuilder said it had increased its order book to 10,433 homes from 9,843 at the same time last year. It also said it had increased its sales rate per site per week to 0.96 up from 0.81, though it didn’t say what proportion of this was affordable housing.

Chief executive Pete Redfern said the firm was “operating in a market environment where economic and political uncertainty has increased as the year has progressed”, and that its strong order book was key to managing this.

“Forward indicators for sales have remained at healthy levels,” he said, “albeit we have seen some increasing customer caution, particularly in the higher-priced markets of London and the South East, as a result of the ongoing political and economic uncertainty.

“We are on track to deliver full year 2019 results in line with our expectations, albeit with slightly higher volumes and slightly lower operating margins than we guided at the half year.”

The firm added that build cost inflation had dipped in recent months, and that it remained hopeful of retaining its HBF “5 star” rating. Shares in the firm fell by 1% in early trading.

Robert Eason, head of research at analyst Goodbody, said: “From an order book perspective, growth remained robust and was up 7% in unit terms. This is reflective of market wide activity levels which illustrate that the UK remains resilient in the face of political headwinds. The group has however flagged a level of caution in higher-priced markets such as London and the South-east.”