Bellway on Tuesday reported a fall in half-year profits against a tough economic backdrop and announced a £100m share buyback as customer demand improved in the current calendar year, helped by a seasonal uplift and a fall in mortgage rates.
Recent reservation rates are higher than those in the final quarter of 2022, although below a strong comparator in the prior year when people looked for larger houses during the Covid pandemic lockdowns.
In the six weeks since the February 1, the overall weekly reservation rate was 192, compared with 291 a year ago and the private reservation rate was 135 per week, down from 239 in 2022.
The company said underlying pre-tax profit for the six months to January 31 fell 4.6% to £312m. Revenue rose 1.6% to £1.8m.
Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com
