Profits have risen at house developer Berkeley Homes despite uncertainty surrounding the London housing market.
The company’s latest results for the year to 30 April 2017 show that pre-tax profits rose to £812.4m from £530.9m in the same period last year.
During the year the group sold 3,905 homes, up 3.4% from a year earlier.
The group pushed the average selling price up by 31% to £675,000.
Forward sales for the group at the year end were down 16% from a year ago to £2.7bn.
The group now has a land bank of £6.4bn of estimated future gross margin across 46,351 plots.
In a statement, the group said: “The housing market has stabilised in London and the south-east but while Berkeley is in excellent shape with further additions to our unrivalled land bank in the period, it is an inescapable fact that we are facing a number of headwinds and a period of prolonged uncertainty.
“Brexit and wider global macro instability impact both confidence and sentiment and will result in constrained investment levels.
“At the same time, the headwinds from changes in recent years to SDLT and mortgage interest deductibility, coupled with the planning environment’s increasing demands from the combination of affordable housing, CIL, Section 106 obligations and review mechanisms, are resulting in reduced levels of new housing starts in London.”
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