Grainger upbeat despite slowing market

11th Aug 2010 07:16

Residential property firm Grainger said it is trading well, despite slowing house price growth in the last few months.The group said £49.4m of residential sales were completed during the four month period to 31 July 2010, taking total sales in the ten months to 31 July to £128.4m. A further £26.4m of sales are in solicitors' hands or have contracts exchanged."As we predicted at the time of our interim results in May, house price growth in the residential market has slowed over the early summer months," the group said in a statement."Nevertheless, our portfolio is resilient and we continue to sell well. We recognise the fragility of the market and are reflecting that by acquiring assets that we believe will deliver good levels of long term returns," it added.Despite the fact that house price growth seen in late 2009 and early 2010 has begun to slow, Grainger said its portfolio continues to perform well. Its total residential sales pipeline at the end of July 2010 totalled £154.8m."We continue to identify attractive acquisition opportunities and our financial capacity and management expertise will enable us to take advantage of those that we believe will deliver long term shareholder value," Grainger said.