Retirement home specialist McCarthy & Stone has issued a market statement warning about the effect of Brexit on its order book completions.
In a trading update from 1 September 2015 to 24 June 2016, it said: “The result of last week’s EU referendum has introduced some uncertainty into the broader UK economy and the housing market in particular.
“This may have an impact on the timing and cost of the conversion of our strong order book of reservations into completions, which the group will continue to monitor.”
The group said in the first 43 weeks of the year it had released 58 new sites and has seen an 18% increase in weekly reservations, leading to a forward order book of £426m at 24 June.
It said in normal market conditions this would be sufficient to deliver its targeted 20% increase in sales volumes over the full year, and to meet market expectations.
Chief executive Clive Fenton said: “Notwithstanding any short-term market impact of last week’s referendum result, the business remains in good shape to deliver on its medium-term strategy.
“We now have sufficient sites to deliver our 2017 targeted sales and sufficient land under our control to deliver on our strategic objective of building and selling more than 3,000 specialist retirement homes in 2019, although we will continue to review our investment plans and monitor housing market developments following the referendum result.”
On 5 September McCarthy & Stone will release a trading update for the year ending 31 August 2016.
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