Persimmon delivers growth

Persimmon has hailed 2024 as a return to growth, with its completions, profit and outlets increasing against 2023.

Issuing its full year results for the year ending December 31 2024, the volume housebuilder said it was targeting 11,000 to 11,500 completions in 2025.

Persimmon’s completions rose 7% against the previous year to 10,664 homes. There was a greater weighting towards private sales, up 18% to 9,075, which the business said reflected a “more typical completion mix” after weaker market conditions in 2023 drove an acceleration of affordable homes delivery.

The private average selling price of the homes was “marginally up”, increasing to £287,162 from 2023’s £285,774.

Underlying pre-tax profit during 2024 rose 10% to £395.1 million, with underlying operating profit improving 14% to £405.2 million. Persimmon’s underlying operating margin moved 10 basis points upwards to 14.1%.

Its net private sales rate improved to 0.70 per outlet per week against 2023’s 0.58, although excluding bulk sales, this was 0.57 (2023: 0.50). Persimmon said a 34% lift in website visitors and a 26% growth in enquiries drove the increase.

At the end of the financial year, the business had 270 selling outlets, up 5% on the end of …