<p><span>Barratt’s home completions rose 24% during the period from July 1 to October 11 2020 against the equivalent period last year as the housebuilder continues to see “strong customer demand”, it said today (October 14).</span></p> <p><span>Issuing a trading update on its new financial year so far, the volume housebuilder delivered 4,032 completions - including joint venture projects – against the previous year’s 3,252. Barratt’s sales rate during the period rose 20.8% on the equivalent period last year to 0.87 net private reservations per active outlet per average week.</span></p><p></p> <p><span>It operated from an average of 340 active outlets, down on last year’s 374 due to site delays as a result of the UK lockdown. But it added that construction activity remained in line with FY21 planned output. During the period it constructed an average of 294 equivalent homes per week.</span></p><p></p> <p><span>The firm launched 33 new schemes against last year’s 26, “helping underpin the expected recovery of our completion volumes”.</span></p><p></p> <p><span>The business said it expected to increase its wholly owned completions to between 14,500 and 15,000 homes in FY21, “based on current market conditions, construction activity levels and assuming no further national lockdowns creating disruption to our construction sites”.</span></p><p></p> <p><span>Barratt’s total forward …