Forward sales up as Miller sees encouraging housing activity

Forward sales at Miller Homes stand 13% ahead of last year at 1,010 with the firm saying that the housing market is “past the worst”.

Announcing its results today, the Miller Group – which includes construction and property development businesses as well as the UK’s largest privately-owned housebuilder - reported a loss before tax of £72.4million for 2009 compared with £170million in 2008. Within this the housing arm lost £14.4 million before exceptional items (£5.8 million) compared to a £14.8 million loss last year and £110.5 million of exceptionals.

The firms completed 2,068 homes in the year – similar to 2008 (2,056) – boosted by HomeBuy Direct and Kickstart.

Miller Homes has opened 17 new housing developments since the middle of last year and says activity levels are encouraging.

“The early and decisive action we took to reorganise our finances and landbanks and rationalise our cost base has stood us in good stead ,” sai! d Group chief executive Keith Miller. “We have 33 sites in our strategic land portfolio which are progressing well through the planning process and these are expected to produce approximately 14,000 plots in the next five years.”

Source: Housebuilder

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