Bovis Homes expects profits to rise ‘significantly’ this year

The firm, which has faced criticism over the quality of its homes, said it had seen significant improvement in customer satisfaction

The news comes a year after the firm issued a profit warning

Bovis Homes expects to deliver significant profit growth this year after reporting a 7 per cent increase in selling prices.

The average price the house builder achieved on homes completed in 2017 rose to £272,000 from from £255,000 in 2016. However, the number of completions fell 8 per cent from 3,977 in 2016 to 3,645 in 2017.

In a trading update for the year to 31 December, the housebuilder said that strong demand for new homes, attractive mortgage rates and government initiatives such as Help to Buy were helping to drive sales.

It said that it had total forward sales of in 2017 it had £417m worth of forward sales, with 40 per cent of this revenue expected to come this year.

“The group had a very disciplined year end and delivered against all of its financial and operational targets for 2017,” chief executive Greg Fitzgerald said.

“Our forward order position is strong, and with robust industry fundamentals, we expect the group to deliver a significant improvement in profitability in 2018,” he added.

The firm, which has faced criticism over homes that were sold unfinished and had electrical and plumbing faults, said it had seen significant improvement in customer satisfaction.

“There has been a step change in the quality of our homes delivered on completion and I’m pleased to see this reflected in our level of customer satisfaction which continues to improve,” Mr Fitzgerald said.