Taylor Wimpey, which was formed by the merger of Taylor Woodrow and George Wimpey, today said it had returned to profitability but remains cautious. The housebuilder, which is the country’s third largest by value, said pre-tax profit before exceptional items came in at £75.1 million for the 2010 year – against a loss of £96.1 [...]
Housebuilder Bovis Homes has today issued a positive trading statement after saying it expects profits to be ahead of expectations for the 2010 year. The company, which is one of the smaller listed housebuilders, said it will also start paying dividends again to shareholders. Many housebuilders took a battering during the housing market slump and [...]
Housebuilder Barratt Developments has issued its first half trading update, delivering a mixed picture. The firm, which is one of the largest housebuilders by volume, said completions fell to 4,832 units from 5,053 in the first half, as private completions dropped. Revenues were unchanged at £875 million but its operating margin grew to 5% from [...]
December’s heavy snowfall had a negative impact on many companies and housebuilder Persimmon was no exception. The housebuilder, which is the UK’s second largest by market value, said sales activity fell by 50% in December but said it had been an encouraging start to the year. The company reported a considerable increase in underlying profits [...]
Taylor Wimpey has reported “relatively robust” UK housing market conditions over the first half of 2010, having achieved 4,804 legal completions, up slightly from 4,702 a year earlier. The group sold 3,925 homes to private buyers and 866 to affordable housing providers, with the remainder joint ventures. Encouragingly, the developer’s cancellation rate scaled back to [...]
Barratt Developments completed 11,377 homes in the year to the end of June, down from 13,277 in the previous 12 month period. Private completions fell to 9,455, compared with 11,133 in 2008/09; social housing completions stood at 1,870 as against 2,069 and joint ventures were down from 75 to 52. However, the developer’s cancellation rate [...]
Barratt Developments has reported a 14% increase in private reservations for the period 1st January to 9th May 2010, compared with the previous six months. In addition, overall forward sales rose 32% on a year earlier, to £1.07 billion. In the first half of 2010, the average selling price of a Barratt home is on [...]
Persimmon Homes managed 8,976 legal completions in 2009, compared with 10,202 in 2008, with an average selling price of £160,513 (down from £172,994 last year). However, Britain’s largest house builder says it has a strong forward sales book of around £900 million, up 29% on 2008. Ninety new sites are scheduled to open in the [...]
House building in England has surged, with figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government showing a 63% quarterly rise in the number of new starts. During the three months to the end of June work began on an estimated 29,980 homes although the figure fell 9% short when compared to the same period [...]
The Department for Communities and Local Government has released statistics for housebuilding in England during the first quarter of 2008. New housing starts were down 21% on the final quarter of last year (to 32,100) and 24% below the level recorded in the first quarter of 2007. Meanwhile, housing completions for all dwellings in England [...]
M&S Money launches 3% cash ISA
M&S Money has launched an Advantage Cash ISA paying 3 per cent, and which allows transfers in from other ISAs. It can be opened with a minimum deposit of £100 lump sum followed by minimum monthly deposits of £25. The 3% rate is variable, but there is no short-term bonus so the return won’t plummet [...]
Google suspends UK Compare Mortgages site
Google has closed its UK mortgage comparison site which it launched in July last year, after it proved to be less popular than expected. Mortgage comparison sites are designed to allow visitors to compare mortgages quickly and easily without having to visit each lender’s individual site. Google was competing with several well-established comparison sites, including [...]
AA launches ‘black-box’ policy for young drivers
The AA is launching an innovative car insurance policy called Drivesafe which could help younger drivers save up to £850 a year. Younger drivers already pay substantially higher premiums than other motorists and these costs are increasing. A new study by Confused.com suggests insurance costs for younger driver have gone up by 5.7 per cent [...]
ATOL scheme updated to protect online bookers
ATOL, a financial protection scheme managed by the Civil Aviation Authority, is being extended to protect up to six million more holidays a year. The scheme ensures that holiday makers do not lose out financially if a travel company collapses, and that they are not stranded abroad. An increase in the number of holidays booked [...]
Home repossessions lowest for four years
The number of UK homes repossessed fell to 36,200 in 2011, significantly below the Council of Mortgage Lenders’ forecast of 40,000, and lower than 2010 when 37,100 homes were repossessed. With interest rates remaining low and lenders adopting a sympathetic attitude to customers in financial difficulty, repossessions fell to their lowest level since 2007. However, [...]
Monthly pay lasting just 17 days
Workers are running out of money just 17 days after receiving their monthly pay, according to new research by the Halifax bank. This means that the average UK worker spends half the month worrying about money. The study, based on the responses of more than 2,000 adults, found that 10 per cent of workers start [...]
Women disadvantaged by auto-enrolment changes
Government proposals to increase the auto-enrolment threshold to £10,000 could put 1.8 million women at risk of missing out on a pension, the TUC has warned. Under the auto-enrolment scheme, which will be phased in from October, private sector employers will automatically enrol workers between the age of 22 years and the state pension age, [...]
Emergency household repairs company Homeserve is taking longer than expected to get back on track after its operations were suspended last October. The company expected customer numbers to fall by 5% this year but it has increased this estimate to 8% and announced the loss of 200 jobs. It estimates that renewal revenue in 2013 [...]
Sale rumoured for Yorkshire and Clydesdale banks
There is growing speculation that National Australia Bank (NAB) may sell Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale Bank after the Australian parent company announced a strategic review of the two banks’ operations. The Australian economy is performing well and NAB reported strong profits for the final quarter of 2011 but with the UK economy at a virtual [...]
More women experiencing debt difficulties
Women in Debt, which offers female-focused debt advice, has warned that the number of UK women facing serious debt has grown significantly over recent years. The organisation believes that more women will need advice on solving debt problems in the future because they are building up an unsustainable level of indebtedness. Women in Debt’s director, [...]
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