Bellway says more than 45% of the 7,500-7,600 homes it plans to build on brownfield sites this trading year, which began August 1, have been forward sold.
This resulted in an order book at July 31 of £561m compared with £513m a year earlier.
The housebuilder said in a trading update for the year that pretax profit would be in line with expectations and it would record a profit for the 10th consecutive year.
Bridgewell, its broker, upgraded its pretax profit forecast for the year just ended to £218.3m from £216.5m.
It upgraded its forecast for the current year from £225.9m to £228m. The shares rose 20p to £12.17.
References: Financial Times 03/08/06 page 18, The Daily Telegraph 03/08/06 page B6 (DataBase)
