Bovis confident of delivering in stable market

8th Jul 2011 07:05

House builder Bovis completed marginally fewer sales in the first half of this year than last, although the underlying picture was brighter and the average sales price increased.Completions eased to 801 from 803 in the first half of last year, but net private reservations in the first half of the year rose 16% to 802 from 691 the year before.The company was keen to emphasise that the 2010 completions figure benefited from the sale of 215 units into a private rental joint venture. The average sales price increased by around 3% year-on-year, and the housing gross margin was around 20%, up from 16.6% the year before. The group expects to deliver an operating margin for the half year of at least 7%.Bovis bought a significant amount of land during the housing market slump, enabling it to plan to open 33 new sales outlets in 2011, 19 of which have already done so.In total, it will have 76 sales outlets open compared to 66 last year but, worryingly for the group, the total number of reservations to buy stood at 1,333 homes as of the 30th of June 2011 compared to 1,474 in 2010.By the end of the first half of the year net cash stood at £46m.Chief Executive David Ritchie said: "On the basis of the current stable market conditions continuing, the group remains confident that it can deliver on its expectations for 2011 and will continue to invest to increase output capacity to deliver higher returns to shareholders." BS