FINANCE: Taylor Wimpey’s pretax profit jumped 67.7% to over £450m in the full year to the end of December 2014, as it achieved higher selling prices for its completed properties.
Average selling prices grew by 11.5% from £191,000 to £213,000, aided by strong demand and low supply, according to the company’s annual statement.
Operating profits rose 53.6% to over £480m and revenues rose by 17% to more than £2.6bn.
Build costs increased between 2013 and 2014 by approximately 5%, spread broadly between labour and materials. However, the housebuilder anticipates lower costs in the near future as materials production increased towards the end of the year.
The company increased its completions in 2014 to 12,454, up 6.5% on the same period in 2013, though the orderbook at the end of December 2014, valued at £1.4bn, was relatively flat at 6,601 – 26 homes down on the 2013 figure.
Taylor Wimpey also acquired another 8,315 plots in 2014 for further short-term projects, taking its land bank to approximately 75,000 plots.
The housebuilder expects the general election to bring some uncertainty to the housing market in 2015 but has seen stronger than expected early-year conditions, with 51% of private completions for 2015 forward-sold by 1 March.
Dividend payments will increase from 0.47p per share to 1.32p per share for 2014.
