Persimmon share price: Group issues trading update

Persimmon (LON:PSN) today released a trading statement, covering the period from 1 January 2015 to date. The housebuilder further announced that it was holding its Annual General Meeting at 12:00 BSTtoday.

**Highlights from the company’s statement:**
We have made an encouraging start to the 2015 financial year. Customer confidence is being supported by the ongoing improvement in UK economic performance and the mortgage market continues to offer customers the opportunity to access mortgage credit on very attractive terms.

Having entered 2015 with a healthy forward order book, our strong sales performance over the first fifteen weeks of the new year has resulted in total forward sales revenue, including legal completions taken so far this year, being 7% higher than last year at £2.00 billion (2014: £1.87 billion).

Our weekly private sales rate per site for the period was 6% ahead of the prior year. We have 7,375 new homes sold forward into the private sale market for 2015 with an average selling price of c. £207,900, which is 4% higher than last year.

In keeping with the long run trend, over the period we experienced an increase of c. 20% in the level of visitors to our home-finder websites when compared with last year, as increasing numbers of customers chose to find their new home online, whilst the number of customers visiting our development sites remains in line with the strong comparative period last year. Cancellation rates have continued to run at historically low levels.
We have now opened 85 of the 120 new sites planned for the first half of 2015 and we are currently developing 385 active outlets across the UK. We continue to build new homes on all sites where we have an implementable detailed planning consent.
As of 07:13 BST, Thursday, 16 April, Persimmon plc share price is 1,760.00p.
**More to follow…*