Build August PDF

Build Magazine 53 Housebuilder Shares Rise to Defy Brexit Fears hile the recent Brexit vote sent initial shocks through national and international markets, the FTSE 100 has since recovered, and new figures suggest that the rumours of a sharp and dismal demise were greatly exaggerated. Nowhere is this more abundantly clear than in the construction industry, and many prominent housebuilding firms reflect a rise in their share prices. Persimmon, the biggest single company in the sector, yesterday recorded a 2.5 per cent rise at 1,918 points in mid-morning trading on the second consecutive day of big wins for the construction industry on the FTSE. Barratt, likewise, was up 2.7 per cent at 499.3p, while Taylor Wimpey and Berkeley Group reported rises of around 2 per cent. These recoveries are promising starts for the UK’s leading housebuilding firms, after they suffered at the initial trauma of the Brexit vote on 24th June; Berkeley’s share prices fell by almost 20 per cent in the aftershock, while Permisson plummeted by almost 40 per cent. Yesterday’s figures serve as a cheery sign of restoring not only revenues and share prices, but also the confidence of investors and prospective homebuyers in the UK. While the figures have certainly proved divisive over their long-term impact, many have pointed out that cancellation rates actually declined in the weeks after the Brexit vote – with ‘sales rates and visitor numbers up strongly, Persimmon at least look to remain in rude health at present’, said George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. It is true that in the week following the referendum, customer cancellations for viewings rose slightly, as scepticism took an early hold. This shake in investor confidence appears to have subsided since then, however, and finance director Mike Killoran has noted that, in Persimmon’s case, ‘given the we are seeing on the sites from visitor traffic and people genuinely wanting to buy, we can see no reason why we wouldn’t see that [autumn] seasonality continue. ‘All the feedback we are getting from sites is that given the market we are in and the product we are offering … there is a great desire to buy.’ W Finance