<p>Taylor Wimpey’s full year results will be in line with market expectations, it said today (January 14), as it reported an “excellent order book” for the start of 2021 but with completions for 2020 down 39% on 2019.</p> <p>The business is the latest housebuilder to give a trading update ahead of its full year results, stating that during the year ending December 31 2020, total UK completions fell to 9,609, chiefly due to the spring shutdown of the housing market in response to Covid-19.</p> <p>During the period, Taylor Wimpey’s net private reservation rate was 0.76 homes per outlet per week against 2019’s 0.96. The private average selling price rose 6% to £323,000.</p> <p>The business traded from an average of 240 outlets, down from 2019’s 250, entering the new year with 239 outlets (December 31 2019: 240). From December 16 to the end of the year, it took 650 reservations under the new Help to Buy scheme for completions from Q2 2021.</p> <p>It is targeting in the medium term a return to 21-22% operating margin, focusing on areas including cost and “process simplification” to achieve this. </p> <p>Taylor Wimpey ended 2020 with a total order book valued at £2,684 million against …