Britain's largest housebuilder Barratt Developments flagged difficult trading conditions over the coming months after it posted a fall in annual profit on Wednesday, as high mortgage rates and a cost-of-living squeeze pummel demand.
Affordability concerns stoked by high mortgage rates and a prolonged cost-of-living crisis have weighed on the UK housing market, with indicators on everything from mortgage demand to construction rates and prices sliding in recent months.
Barratt said the UK housing market remained difficult and the outlook uncertain, adding that it expected average sales sites to reduce by around 6% in the current fiscal.
The company said forward sales - a key industry metric which gauges housing demand - stood at 2.44 billion pounds ($3.07 billion) as of Aug. 27, down 36% from a year earlier.
The FTSE 100-listed builder said its pre-tax profit was 884.3 million pounds for the year ended June 30, compared with a company-compiled analysts' consensus of 882 million pounds.
($1 = 0.7950 pounds) (Reporting by Aby Jose Koilparambil in Bengaluru and Suban Abdulla in London; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
