We are delighted to release our latest New Homes Bulletin, courtesy of the Rettie research team, Scotland’s largest dedicated property research team.
Key Findings:
- With the UK’s exit from the EU primed for late March 2019, there does appear to be weakening sentiment in the UK residential industry and new home registrations in Scotland are down 7% year-on-year.
- However, housing completions in Scotland continue to rise (albeit modestly, by around 4% year-on-year), with particular strong growth in the regions outside the main cities. UK new housing output was also up in Q4 2018.
- UK housebuilders have had a clear knock on their share prices over much of 2018 (typically by around 20-35%), but experienced something of a ‘Santa rally’ before the year end. Companies such as Taylor Wimpey saw sales up 3% over 2018, again evidence of the modest improvement in sector performance despite the Brexit headwinds.