According to Taylor Wimpey’s results, there has been an increase in overall year-to-date sales rate and pricing has remained resilient.
Its net private sales rate for the year to 23 April was 0.75, slightly down from 0.97 in the same period last year.
The cancellation rate was 15 per cent during the same period, which is slightly above the cancellation rate of 14 per cent in 2022.
Its total order book value stood at £2.4bn, which compares to £3bn in the same period last year. This represents around 8,576 homes.
The housebuilder said that while industry sales rates are at lower levels than in previous years, customer interest was recovering from the drop in the last quarter of the year.
Taylor Wimpey expects completions for the year to be in the range of 9,000 to 10,500, with completions more weighted to the second half.
“Our focus on building a strong order book will allow us to optimise price going into 2024, and, as a result, not all reservations taken between now and the end of September will be for completion in 2023.
“Looking ahead, while we remain mindful of wider macroeconomic uncertainties, our business is well placed with a clear strategy focused on operational excellence and delivering value from our high-quality landbank,” the housebuilder said.
Taylor Wimpey to spend £8m in 2023 to deliver cost savings
Taylor Wimpey said it continued to focus on “operational discipline” and had “tightened all areas of our operations with strict work in progress control, restricted discretionary spend and significantly reduced landbuying”.
The housebuilder said it completed its consultation in January and had made a series of changes, delivering annualised cost savings of £19m, and the cost of achieving it this year is £8m.
“These changes will not affect our existing market coverage, ability to provide high-quality product and service to our customers or ability to take advantage of market opportunities should they emerge,” the housebuilder said.
‘Continued commitment’ from mortgage providers to lend
Taylor Wimpey continued that “challenges remain for customers”, especially for first-time buyers but targeted marketing spend has allowed the firm to maintain customer interest at healthy levels.
“There is a continued commitment by mortgage providers to lend with good levels of product availability and with rates reduced from the highs of Q4 2022.
“We continue to focus on addressing the needs of our customers, evolving our offering and prioritising improvements in customer service leveraging our customer relationship management system,” Taylor Wimpey said.
Jennie Daly, Taylor Wimpey’s chief executive, said: “We have seen continued recovery in demand from the low levels experienced towards the end of 2022, supported by good mortgage availability, and have seen an incremental improvement in sales rate as the Spring selling season has progressed.
“While we remain cautious of continued macroeconomic uncertainty, Taylor Wimpey is a strong and agile business differentiated by our high-quality landbank and experienced teams who have a sharp focus on operational discipline.”
Daly confirmed that she was stepping down as chair, with Robert Noel taking on the role.
Noel has been chairman at Hammerson since 2020 and has been a senior independent director at Taylor Wimpey since 2019.
He has also held roles at European Public Real Estate Association, Land Securities Group, Land Aid Charitable Trust and Great Portland Estates.
