Countrywide predicts rosier full-year profit
COUNTRYWIDE Holdings, Britain’s largest estate agent by revenue, has said it expects to deliver a full-year profit at the top end of expectations after revenues rose by a quarter in the fourth quarter of the year.
The group yesterday reported an income of £171m in the quarter to 31 December and £584.8m for the full-year, up 11 per cent on the prior year.
“It is extremely pleasing to end 2013 with such strong results showing real momentum across all of our trading divisions,” chief executive Grenville Turner, said.
“Recent market data and healthy pipelines going into 2014 indicate an encouraging environment for Countrywide to deliver further significant growth,” he added.
Countrywide’s core business is in second hand home sales and the group is expected to benefit from the second part of the Help to Buy scheme which launched in October. However, the group warned it was still too early to judge the impact on transactions at this stage.
Over 6,000 applications have been made so far under the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme, of which 80 per cent were first time buyers and 75 per cent were outside London and the south east.