Vistry Group’s latest trading update says it is on track to deliver over 18,000 completions in 2024, a growth of over 10% higher from last year. The new estimate is an increase from its previous expectation of 17,500 units for the year.
The housebuilder’s forward sales position is also up 10% on 2023, totalling £4.9billion compared to £4.5billion the previous year, with £2.1billion for delivery this year.
The company expects both its half-year and full-year profits to improve on last year and is confident of hitting an operating profit of £800million in the medium term.
Chief executive of Vistry, Greg Fitzgerald, said: “The group has had a good start to the year with our unique Partnerships model clearly demonstrating its market resilience. Working closely with our partners, we are seeing good demand in the Partner Funded market and accompanied by an improving trend for our open market sales, are on track to deliver more than 10% growth in completions in FY24, with half year and full year profit expected to be ahead of last year. This is underpinned by our strong forward sales position totalling £4.9 bilion, up 10% on the same position last year. We remain confident in our differentiated strategy and are making good progress towards our medium-term targets.”
The trading update also said that Vistry was seeing “attractive Partnership opportunities“, meeting the criteria it set of a minimum of 50% of units to be Partner Funded, providing a 40% return on capital employed and having an operating margin of 12%. Working with its partners, Vistry has also secured new land and development opportunities for 19 developments and a total of 6,037 mixed-tenure in the year so far.
Vistry also stated that demand from Registered Providers for affordable homes has remained high, and For Profit Registered Providers in particular showing strong demand. Meanwhile, interest from the private rented sector also remains strong and is working closely with RPs that are looking to invest in the maintenance of their existing housing stock.
Vistry’s total sales rate has increased to an average of 0.96 for the year so far, up from 0.87 in 2023, while over the last eight weeks it has grown to 1.23, down slightly year-on-year from 1.24.
