Vistry have made the decision to close their private home sales unit after the cost-of-living forced a slump in the purchase of properties.
Although the rate of inflation is slowly coming down, property organisations across the UK are still drastically loosing business.
In a trading update, Vistry, a British housebuilding company based in Kings Hill, said: ‘We have not seen the seasonal increase in private sales since September that we had expected.’
As a result, the company have made the difficult decision to switch their focus solely to social housing, which means 200 jobs are going to have to be cut and the number of regional Vistry units will be reduced from 32 to 27. Although an expected £25m is expected to come in cost savings.
However, it’s not all bad news as many local authorities across Britain have begun to prioritise creating more affordable homes. A recent examples of this is Wandsworth Council, who, are demanding that at least half of a new development be made up of affordable housing.
In addition, more positives have sprung from the decision as suppliers have agreed cost reductions for all existing and forthcoming contracts, displaying that the rate of price rises in homes has come down.
‘We appreciate the productive discussions we have had in recent weeks with our key supply chain partners to agree cost reductions for all our existing and future contracts,’ Vistry said in their update. ‘With a high level of visibility on forward sales, build programmes and revenues in the partnership model, we can offer greater continuity of work to our suppliers and, working with them, can increase the overall rate of delivery on our sites and supply of much needed affordable mixed tenure homes.’
Image: Ümit Yıldırım
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