Crest plans more homes on Help to Buy extension

Housebuilder Crest Nicholson said today it would build more homes on the back of George Osborne’s Budget pledge to extend the government Help to Buy scheme to 2020.

In an interim management statement the firm said the extension of the Help to Buy scheme, confirmed in yesterday’s Budget, provided “additional certainty for business planning” in the medium term.

The statement added that the extension supported “the investment in skills and capacity required to deliver an increasing number of new homes”.

Sales at housebuilder Crest Nicholson have risen 13% in the start of its financial year in November on the previous year, with 0.86 homes sold per site per week.

The housebuilder said it had now taken 58% of the reservations needed for the whole year to November, with £330m of sales reserved, 50% more than that reserved at this point last year.

The firm also said that it had seen evidence of steadily rising house prices in its markets, including outside of the capital, with rises in London starting to “ripple” out to the home counties.

However the firm said that cancellation rates had risen from 8% to 12%, and that it hadn’t increased the number of sites it was selling from significantly.

Chief executive Stephen Stone said: “Market conditions throughout our areas of operation continue to be favourable and the business is responding by increasing our delivery of new homes. We are continuing to add value to our land bank and to progress opportunities to develop the business for the benefit of all our stakeholders.”