<p><span>Vistry’s profits for its full year are in line with expectations but, as with other housebuilders, its private sales fell significantly in Q4 2022.</span></p> <p><span>Giving a trading update for the year to December 31 2022, Vistry – which acquired Countryside Partnerships in November – said it expected full year adjusted pre-tax profit to increase by 21% on 2021 to £418 million.</span></p> <p><span>Its Housebuilding division delivered 6,774 units during the year, a 3% uplift, with adjusted gross margin expected to rise to “at least” 23% from 2021’s 22.3%. </span></p> <p><span>The Partnerships arm saw mixed tenure completions rise 17.6% to 2,455 units. It is anticipated the division’s adjusted operating margin will climb to at least 10% from last year’s 9.2%.</span></p> <p><span> In its first half, the group achieved an 11% increase in its average weekly privates sales rate per outlet to 0.84 against H1 2021. But in Q4 this dropped “significantly” to 0.46, “reflecting the heightened level of macro uncertainty and step-up in mortgage costs”. For the full year the private sales rate was 0.71 (FY21: 0.76).</span></p> <p><span> The group began the new year with forward sales of £4.6 billion against the previous year’s £2.7 billion - £3.6 billion of which was …