Residential property developer Barratt has become the latest housebuilder to report increased profits, as government initiatives to help first-time buyers continue to push up demand for new homes.
Pre-tax profits soared 40pc in the six months to December, helped by improved mortgage availability and schemes to get first-time buyers onto the property ladder.
Barratt sold 9.4pc more homes in the half-year period, compared with a year earlier, at a rate of 260 a week.
The company trades under three brands - Barratt Homes, David Wilson Homes and Barratt London – all of which benefited from a 0.5pc increase in the number of transactions completed in the wider UK property market last year.
David Thomas, chief executive of Barratt Developments, said: “In line with our strategy, we have stepped up the number of completions in the first half and we did this in a disciplined way, both financially and operationally, without compromising on the quality of the homes we’re building.
“In the past five years we have increased our annual output by more than 53pc, built more than 71,700 homes and approved the investment of more than £4.4bn in new land for housing.”
The government’s 'help to buy' programme, which provides mortgage guarantees and equity for first-time buyers, was helping to support the market, Mr Thomas said.
He added that Barratt backed a new 'starter homes' scheme, which aims to provide 200,000 homes for first-time buyers by 2020.
Lending to buyers in the new build sector strengthened in the half-year, as competition in the mortgage market remained robust, giving potential homeowners a wide range of products to choose from.
Barratt increased its interim dividend by 25pc to 6p, and expects that over the two-year period to November 2017 it will have returned £678m in cash to shareholders.
Reference: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/02/24/government-initiatives-for-first-time-buyers-boost-barratt/