House building company Persimmon boosted by government's Help To Buy scheme
GOVERNMENT sweeteners for homebuyers have helped house builder Persimmon to make a constructive start to 2014.
Persimmon has sold about 5,000 homes to customers in England backed by the Help To Buy shared equity scheme, of which 2,203 legally completed last year.
The group said that total forward sales revenue had risen 35 per cent to £1.87billion from a year ago.
Although industry bosses say hitting Government targets for new house-building will be tough if not impossible in the foreseeable future, Persimmon said the extra demand it was experiencing was allowing the group and its rivals to increase development deals.
Chief executive Jeff Fairburn said: “Our build activity continues to support the improved rates of sale.”
Persimmon said that visitor numbers to its sites are up a 10th in the first 15 weeks of 2014 and weekly private sales per site are up a quarter.
It has sold about 7,200 private homes in 2014, 38 per cent up on the same point last year, with an average selling price of about £200,400, up 3 per cent.
Shares in the company, which has about 395 sites across the United Kingdom, rose 10p to 1275p.
