By Joe Hoppe
M.J. Gleeson said Friday that it expects its fiscal 2023 results to meet expectations, as higher average selling price offset lower volumes, and said it has encouraging prospects for fiscal 2024.
The house builder said it completed the sale of 1,723 homes in the year ended June 30, down from 2,000 homes a year prior, reflecting a downturn in the wider economy and the immediate hit to buyer confidence resulting from higher interest rates.
Selling prices however were resilient, with the average price rising 11% to 186,200 pounds ($237,256) on-year. This was underpinned by a supply shortage, and helped to offset material and labor price increases.
Reservation rates over the last six months improved to 0.64 net reservations per site per week, from 0.62 reservations for the comparable period a year prior.
The company said that while it believes demand from first-time buyers will persist at the levels seen over the last few months, it expects interest from other, value-driven buyers to increase as home buyers take advantage of its more affordable price points.
The company didn’t provide any financial figures for fiscal 2023. However, a FactSet consensus of five analysts put fiscal 2023 revenue at GBP335.8 million, down from GBP373.4 million a year before.
Write to Joe Hoppe at [email protected]
Read the full article here
