<p>Persimmon has seen a “strong” trading performance during its half year, with new home sale completion levels close to those of the first half of 2019, it said today (August 18).</p> <p>During the six months ending June 30 2021, the volume housebuilder <span>delivered 7,406 legal completions against HY 2020’s 4,900 which covered the period of the market shutdown. In HY 2019 this was </span>at 7,584.</p> <p>The homes’ average selling price during the period was <span>£236,199, up </span><span>4.9%</span><span>. Pre-tax profit grew </span><span>64</span>% to <span>£480.1 million, slightly below </span><span>2019’s £509.3 million.</span><span></span></p> <p><span>Total group revenues increased to £1.84 billion from 2020’s £1.19 billion, with a new housing revenue of </span><span>£1.75 billion (2020: £1.10 billion).</span><span> And Persimmon’s new housing operating margin improved to 27.6% against 2020’s 26.6%.</span></p> <p><span>The company’s average private sales rate for the period was more than </span><span>30% ahead of 2020. This reflected the disruptions of the previous year, Persimmon noted, but the rate was also around 20% up on 2019.</span></p> <p><span>The business has been operating from around 300 active outlets on average during 2021. With its “strong pipeline”, it expects to deliver around 85 new outlets by the end of this year. A similar number are expected to open in the …