Crest Nicholson shares rallied on Tuesday after the housebuilder lifted its full-year profit expectations as it hailed a “resilient” UK housing market.
In an update for the period from 1 November 2020 to 22 March 2021, the company highlighted a good trading performance and said it now expects full-year adjusted pre-tax profit of around £85m, ahead of consensus expectations of £74.3m.
“The UK housing market has remained resilient to the impacts of Covid-19 and is set to benefit from the measures recently outlined in the Budget, including the extension of the Stamp Duty holiday and the introduction of government-backed 95% mortgages,” it said.
Crest also noted that its private sales per outlet week rate in the last eight weeks was 0.81, up from its last reported FY20 sales rate of 0.59.
As of 22 March, the housebuilder’s order book is more than 70% covered for FY21, up from 55% reported at the preliminary results in January. This includes sales that will legally complete after the end of Help to Buy phase 1 and the Stamp Duty holiday extension.
Crest expects to release its results for the six months ending 30 April 2021 on 23 June.
At 0815 GMT, the shares were up 4.6% at 392.60p.
