Persimmon says current forward sales up 11%

Housebuilder Persimmon said current forward sales revenue, including legal completions taken to date, was up 11% to £2.56 bn, adding that it was confident on future prospects.

It added that the weekly private sales rate per site since reporting 2016 results in February was 12% ahead of last year, resulting in a sales rate which was 4% ahead for the year to date.

“We have 8,928 new homes sold forward into the private ownership market with an average selling price of around £229,500, an increase of 4.1% over the prior year,” Persimmon said.

"Despite the continued difficulties encountered with planning delays, we have opened 67 of the 90 new sites planned for the first half of the year. These new sales outlets opened across the UK continue to support our margin progression, due to the associated lower land cost recoveries, which has been aided further by some modest price improvement through the Spring period so far."

Persimmon said it was currently developing 382 active sales outlets across the UK and building new homes on all sites that have an implementable detailed planning consent.

"During the period we continued to identify good opportunities to acquire new land to support the future growth of the business.," it added.

The company also said it had recently concluded a one year extension of the maturity date of its £300m revolving credit cacility, out to 31 March 2022, with the its five "relationship" banks.