Housebuilder Persimmon unaffected by General Election as sales expected to jump 12%

Housebuilding company Persimmon expects its revenue in the first half of 2015 to be up around 12% compared to the same period in 2014, it said in a trading update.

The company said in the statement that the average selling price rose by 4% and that it is working on expanding sales volumes. The half year results will be published on 18 August 2015.

"The land market continues to provide attractive opportunities for investment to support the future growth of the business," the company stated.

"We have acquired 11,500 new plots of land across the UK during the first half and our consented land bank at 30 June totalled 92,400 plots. We continue to take advantage of profitable opportunities to strengthen the land platform for the future development of the business," Persimmon stated.

The property market is very strong, fuelled by high demand and property is increasingly seen as a responsible save haven investment.

The company said that, despite the uncertainty that hit the property market in the months leading up to the General Election in May, it managed a 5% expansion of its outlet network to 395 active sites.

Augustin Eden, analyst at Accendo Markets, said that many housebuilders have seen climbing sales over the last months.

He added: "Yet with this morning's Nationwide House Prices posting a 0.2% decline in June compared with an expected 0.5% increase, fickle traders are jumping ship. Have the house builders peaked? No."

"Prices went up by 3.3% over the past 12 months. While that's bad for normal people who want a house, it's great for the folks that build them as long as there are buyers in the market – and there clearly are."