Wednesday newspaper share tips: Redrow, Legal&General, Aviva

Unless we are heading for some sort of huge housing crisis, shares of many homebuilders are still attractive, with stock in Redrow being a particular case in point, while several others were on guaranteed dividend yields, The Times´s Tempus wrote.

Instead of shovelling large amounts of cash back at shareholders, management at Redrow is focused on building the business.

The stock yields a respectable 3.3% and its latest update shows that analysts were being too cautious.

Indeed, the residential and commercial builder has seen the value of private reservations jump 46% year-on-year to £1.56bn with the order book up by half.

"Plenty of further growth is booked in," Tempus said.

Of course, a slowing economy would dampen demand a bit everywhere, but the country is not building all the houses it needs nor is it likely to.

Neither is the industry bogged down by huge debts as it was when the financial crisis struck in 2008.

"If you think the world is coming to an end, avoid. If you want a good income, go elsewhere in the sector. If you want a good exposure to the housing market at a good price, buy now," Tempus concluded.

Shares of Legal&General and Aviva looked oversold and offered solid balance sheets and healthy forward dividend yields, Tempus said.

The first to caution of the blindingly obvious was Aviva, on Monday. In a 'nut-shell', the firm said the fall-out from the financial crisis in no way threatened balance sheets - which just in the spring were thought to reflect management teams erring on the side of caution.

It was followed on Tuesday by Legal&General, which pointed out that its Solvency II coverage ratio - which measured the difference between what was in the bank and potential liabilities - stood at 156% as of Monday night.

"It will be a bit better again after yesterday’s recovery. It would take a pretty extraordinary market collapse to see it fall even to the unofficial target that L&G is reckoned to have of 140%, let alone approach the danger zone," the tipster added.

Furthermore, the company highlighted that the dividend income was in no way at risk. Indeed, the forward dividend yield was still a healthy 8.0%.

Like Aviva, the shares looked oversold, so 'Buy' was the advice from Tempus.