MJ Gleeson doubles home sales as appetite for affordable property offsets inflation
Low-cost housebuilder MJ Gleeson has doubled its home sales in the past five years, leaving significant material and labour cost increases in the dust.
In an upbeat trading update today, the company boasted a more than 10 per cent jump in sales to a total of 2,000 in the year to 30 June.
“Notwithstanding the ongoing congestion in the planning system and the wider macro-economic environment, the board believes that the scale of pent-up demand for low-cost homes will continue to drive significant growth into 2023 and beyond,” CEO James Thomson said in a statement.
Gleeson has navigated through soaring raw material inflation and labour shortages, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic, with record house prices offsetting much of the increased cost of doing business.
The London-listed housebuilder said that the average price of a home has increased nearly 15 per cent to £167,300 but remains affordable enough so “a young working couple on the National Living Wage can afford to buy a home on any of the company’s sites.”
“The cost of buying a typical Gleeson home remains less than the cost of renting,” the housebuilder added, as rents in England reach never-before-seen heights.
The company has opened 23 new build sites since the start of the year, and a total of 87 over the past 12-months.
Shares rose 2.3 per cent by mid-afternoon.
It comes ahead of Thomson stepping down from his position, making way for the boss of rival housebuilder Vistry, Grahan Prothero, to take up the helm at the end of the year.