Wimpey shrugs off cooling market

FURTHER signs emerged today of a cooling UK housing market as housebuilders George Wimpey and MJ Gleeson warned of a slowdown in trading since the summer.

Wimpey said that the cooling would have a 'modest impact' on sales volumes for its financial year ending 31 December, with little or no price inflation. The company sold 12,900 homes in Britain last year.

'We are seeing healthy visitor levels and good underlying demand from customers but little or no price inflation in the market,' Finance Director Andrew Carr-Locke said in a telephone interview. Overall, UK house prices remained stable, he added, although buyers were more cautious.

Wimpey, which posted a 29% jump in half-year profits in July, said in its trading update that full-year pre-tax profits should be in line with market forecasts of about £440m, greatly helped by improvements in the company's US business.

Gleeson warned that the slowdown 'may well preclude a further significant uplift' in its current financial year ending 30 June 2005. Pre-tax profits last year almost doubled to £17.6m.

The company's Gleeson Homes division sold 496 houses last year, less than it had targeted, with some 70 deferred into 2004-05. Both Gleeson and Wimpey are returning to the use of incentives to drive sales.