President Trump’s trade war is not affecting people’s appetite or ability to move home, one of the country’s biggest developers has said.

Persimmon said it had “not yet seen any impact of the heightened macroeconomic uncertainty on either supply chains or sales rates”.

The reassuring tone pushed up its shares by 42p, or 3.2 per cent, on Thursday afternoon to £13.37, their highest since mid-November.

Persimmon, named after an Epsom Derby winner, was founded in 1972 by Duncan Davidson and built houses in and around York, where it is still based. The group was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1985 and is now a member of the FTSE 100 with a market capitalisation of £4.2 billion.

Dean Finch, its chief executive, said the group had “started the year well”, with the market, which had been slow for most of 2023 and 2024, picking up thanks to a combination of falling mortgage rates and rising wages, which has improved affordability. Estate agents and developers also reported a restlessness among buyers, some of whom have been waiting on the sidelines for more than two and a half years.

Since the start of 2025, Persimmon has been selling 0.65 homes per week at each of its 275 sites, about 3 per cent more than it was selling in the opening few months of 2024. The developer estimates that its prices are up by 4 per cent year-on-year to an average of £293,300.

Its order book has swelled to £1.68 billion, £250 million more than 12 months ago, reflecting the better sales rates and higher prices, and the fact it is working from a dozen or so more sites than at this time last year.

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Persimmon said that “customer interest remains strong across the country”. As a result of that, and in addition to increasing its prices, the group has reduced its use of incentives such as free carpets or stamp duty contributions in recent weeks. Its incentives had been running at close to 5 per cent of the headline sale price, but this has now retreated to around 4 per cent.

Economists expect the UK economy will grow more slowly as a result of the US trade war, but that is likely to encourage the Bank of England to cut interest rates a little more quickly than thought only a couple of months ago, which is ultimately beneficial for housebuilders.

Finch, 58, said: “We have seen no immediate impact on the business or on customer confidence from the recent geopolitical uncertainty. Consequently, at this stage we remain on track to deliver further growth in completions to between 11,000 and 11,500 for the full year, providing the UK housing market remains stable.”