Persimmon (PSN) announces full-year figures on Tuesday, and the London-focused housebuilder has already indicated that a 30 per cent increase in second-half completions will have boosted full-year output by 16 per cent to 11,528.
Pressing demand for new homes in and around the capital is coming from overseas cash buyers looking for a safe investment as well as from owner occupiers and buy-to-let landlords, and forward sales at the end of December were already up 41 per cent from a year ago at £908m. Persimmon also expects to see demand sustained for the foreseeable future, and has added 17,600 new plots to the consented land bank, equivalent to 153 per cent of current consumption. And despite renewed investment in land, net cash balances remained steady at £204m.