The British housing market is in the middle of an accelerated slowdown, dragged lower by elevated levels of mortgage rates, while broader economic fears amid a cost-of-living crunch too have driven homebuyers away.
"Whilst we have seen some early signs of improvement in current trading during January, we will need to see continued momentum over the coming months before we can be confident that these challenging trading conditions are easing," Chief Executive Officer David Thomas said in a statement.
Net bookings rate per average week fell to 0.49 during the Jan. 1-Jan. 29 period, compared with 0.90 during the corresponding period a year earlier and a slight improvement over 0.30 reported for about last three months of 2022.
The FTSE 100 firm said pretax profit for the six months ended Dec. 31 came in at 501.5 million pounds ($603.7 million), compared with 432.6 million pounds a year earlier, underpinned by its significant order book running until fiscal year-end.
($1 = 0.8308 pounds)
(Reporting by Aby Jose Koilparambil in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
