Housebuilder Bellway has played down talk of a north-south divide in the housing market after posting a 51% jump in its full-year profits today.
The UK’s fourth biggest housebuilder said its six northern divisions legally completed the sale of 2,345 homes in the year to July 31, an increase of 18% on the previous year on prices broadly similar to last year.
While the southern divisions’ average selling price increased by 13.1% to £203,973, sales volumes remained broadly static at 2,577.
Bellway posted profits of £67.2 million for the 12 months, up from £44.4 million a year earlier, and said reservations for the first nine weeks of the new financial period were almost 11% ahead of a year earlier.
Chairman Howard Dawe added: "Whilst developments in and around London, where we presently operate from about 35 sites, have been the most resilient, there are many areas throughout the rest of the country where activity has also been encouraging."
Bellway extended its record of paying dividends in every year since 1979 today as it raised its full-year payout by just over 30% to 8.8p a share.
It said almost half of the volume increase in the northern area was delivered by the West Midlands division, which achieved 500 legal completions in the year, a similar volume to the North East division.
