Bellway sees buyer confidence 'ebb away'

19th Oct 2010 07:51

Housebuilder Bellway bounced back into profit and upped its final dividend as the housing market stabilised though it says "buyer confidence slowly ebbed away during the summer" and sales have picked up only slightly recently.Profits in the year to July came in at £44.4m against a loss of £36.6m as sales rose to £768m from £684m. Bellway took one-off charges of £66m the previous year for big landbank write-downs.The group completed 4,595 home sales, an increase of almost 5% over the previous year at an average selling price of £163,175, up almost 6%, mainly due to changes in product mix.Bellway had a forward order book at end September of £397m (2009 - £349.4m), but the chairman is wary over the impact of the government's spending review."Sales in the early part of what is traditionally an active autumn selling period have picked up, albeit only slightly, following the usual summer lull and it seems that potential homebuyers are awaiting the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review," Howard Dawe said.Even so, Bellway upped the final dividend to 6.7p from 6p taking the total for the year to 10p from 9p.