Barratt homes enjoys its best spring sales season in five years
BARRATT yesterday hailed its best spring selling season in five years, as it focused on more buoyant sections of Britain’s weak property market and government initiatives helped to prop it up.
The company, one of Britain’s largest housebuilders, said while the economic outlook remains uncertain, it expects “the various government initiatives to continue to provide support to the industry”.
Weekly private reservations were up 25.3 per cent in the 18 weeks to 6 May compared with a year earlier while the average selling price rose five per cent to £202,000, as it focused its activities on London and the south east, where prices have been more buoyant.
Barratt said customer interest in the NewBuy mortgage indemnity scheme, which sees the government underwrite losses to encourage the return of 95 per cent loans, “remains encouraging” with 1,600 people registering interest each week.
Analysts however fear that housebuilders may be too bullish on the uptake of the NewBuy scheme and that mortgage lenders pricing the product high will put off customers.