<p><span class="t"><span>Crest Nicholson has revised its expected full year profit upwards in response to achieving a “good trading performance”. </span></span></p> <p><span class="t"><span>Issuing a trading update covering the period from November 1 2020 to March 22 2021, the housebuilder said it expected its pre-tax profit for the year ending October 31 2021 to be around £85 million, above the originally advised </span></span><span>£74.3 million.</span></p> <p><span>The resilient UK housing market would benefit from the extension to the stamp duty holiday and introduction of government-backed 95% mortgages, Crest noted. It said it had continued to deliver a strong trading performance this year, with its private sales per outlet per week rate in the past eight weeks standing at <span class="t">0.81. This was a marked improvement on its last reported FY20 sales rate of 0.59.</span></span></p> <p><span class="t"><span>As of March 22, its order book was more than 70% covered for its full year, up from the 55% reported in its preliminary results in January.</span></span></p> <p><span class="t"><span>The order book includes sales which will legally complete after the end of the first Help to Buy and the stamp duty holiday extension. Crest said this further reflected customers’ confidence in the market.</span></span></p> <p><span class="t"><span>“Given this good trading performance and …