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Housebuilder Bellway has said that it will beat profit forecasts on the back of a strong start to the spring selling season.

Announcing interim results for the half year to 31 January, with profits up 26% to 拢24m, the company said that it now expected to increase the number of homes sold in the full year by 5% on 2010. Last autumn it said a good result would be to match 2010鈥檚 sales.

Alistair Leitch, Bellway鈥檚 finance director, said: 鈥淭he highlight is that we鈥檙e seeing a return to the traditional spring selling pattern. Around October last year we were concerned it wouldn鈥檛 happen, but since January we鈥檝e seen an increase.

鈥淚t looks like people have taken stock of where they are in their jobs, and those that have got reassurance are pressing ahead with purchasing. For all buyers apart from first-time buyers the market鈥檚 quite good at the moment, with low mortgage rates.鈥�

Leitch said the 5% increase on last year in home sales would bring with it a 鈥渃onsequent increase in profits.鈥�

The number of sales per site per week has increased from 0.43 between August and January, to almost 0.6 since then. Bellway is now operating at 200 sites, and plans to bring 10 to the market in the next few weeks.

Bellway sold 2,332 homes in the first six months of the financial year, up 4% on 2010, generating turnover of 拢408m, an increase of 13%.

Howard Dawe, Bellway chairman, said that buyers were still nervous, but said that the market was better now than it had been portrayed in the press.

鈥淭here is no doubt that the housing market stuttered through the autumn of 2010 and that the inclement weather prior to Christmas had a negative effect on reservation levels.

鈥淪ince the start of 2011, however, visitors and reservations have returned to the pattern of a traditional spring market, despite a media backdrop of negativity,鈥� he said.
Leitch also welcomed the chancellor鈥檚 announcement of a 拢250m shared equity scheme to help first-time buyers purchase new-build homes.

He said that the government announcement could provide a boost to income in the next financial year, with Bellway having sold 800 homes through Labour鈥檚 New Build
HomeBuy scheme.