Revenues rose 9 per cent to £1.5bn over the period as it built more than 6,000 homes in the first half of the year.
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In an update released on Wednesday, the FTSE 100 company says that despite the vote to leave the European Union, trading has so far remained resilient and that there had been no discernible impact from the referendum so far.
It saw a 5.8pc increase in its average selling price to £238,000, pushing its pre-tax profit up 12pc to £266.6m.
With a strong order book which has grown to over £2.2 billion as at 24 July, we are c.90% forward sold for 2016.
Just before the close, shares were up 6 per cent, or 10.1p, at 155.0p.
It is still only one month since the referendum, but Taylor Wimpey’s strong results seem to corroborate the view of analysts at Credit Suisse, who argued in a recent note that Britain’s housebuilders are set to get a boost in the aftermath of Brexit.
ITV and house builders have led the FTSE 100 higher amid investor relief that the “Brexit” vote has not hit their businesses as much as feared.
It was a similar story on the FTSE 250, where Crest Nicholson (CRST) jumped 7% to 430.7p, while Bellway (BWY) rose 4.6% to £20.31 and Bovis (BVS) was up 3.5% at 790p.
‘Whilst the wider London market remains robust and in line with the rest of the United Kingdom, the central London market has continued to slow, particularly at the upper end of the market’. Peel Hunt reaffirmed a “hold” rating and issued a GBX 215 ($2.85) target price on shares of Taylor Wimpey plc in a research report on Wednesday.
There have been a number of predictions about the prospects of the property market following the decision to leave – most notably when French bank Société Générale warned of a potential 30% being wiped of London property prices (read here).
‘The markets in all of our core regional geographies, which are the primary drivers of our business, continue to trade positively.
Latih Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said Taylor Wimpey “isn’t blinking in the face of Brexit”.
“The long-term economic outlook of the Brexit decision is still unclear, and any rise in unemployment would be negative for the United Kingdom housing market”.
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But Taylor Wimpey appears optimistic about the markets future.
