Almost all UK housebuilders’ revenues fell as fewer homes built during covid
Only one of the biggest housebuilders in Britain has seen an increase in its revenue and built more homes in 2020, new research shows.
The latest research from Warwick Estates has revealed that Vistry Group was the only major house builder which saw improved performance in terms of the number of houses delivered, and in revenue.
The company built 6,131 homes in 2020 – almost 60 per cent more compared to the previous year. It also saw an uplift in revenues of just under 80 per cent – the only housebuilder to see positive movement.
The London-listed housebuilder rapidly expanded its land bank over the last year as it ramped up home building activity.
It also increased its controlled land bank by c.1,600 over the last 12 months, it said in a trading updated published last week.
Persimmon developed the most homes with 13,575 in total but this still represented a 14 per cent decline compared to 2019. Barrat also delivered over 12,600 homes to the market despite a 29 per cent drop compared to its pre-Covid numbers. Bellway, too, saw a 9 per cent year on year decline despite building almost 12,000 new homes.
Of the eight housebuilders Warwick Estates analysed, Taylor Wimpey suffered the worst decline, at almost 40 per cent, in the number of houses it delivered – resulting in less than 10,000 homes being built.
Redrow saw the greatest drop in revenue at 37 per cent, as a result of the pandemic.
Bethan Griffiths, the chief operating officer of Warwick Estates, said that, in spite of the booming property market buoyed by the stamp duty holiday, the pandemic has been “problematic for the nation’s housebuilders, to say the least” in a statement.
She blamed the “ongoing and ever-changing restrictions,” for the decline in the number of homes built in Britain, and the subsequent fall in revenues.
“However, now that we are working our way back to some form of total normality,” Griffiths said, “we expect these vital cogs of the property market to dust themselves down, roll up their sleeves and bounce back.”
Warwick Estates analysed eight of Britain’s biggest housebuilders based on the latest data available on revenues and how they performed in 2020 when compared to 2019.