{"id":311471,"date":"2026-01-30T12:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T12:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/311471\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T12:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T12:03:13","slug":"early-signs-of-housing-market-recovery-after-sluggish-2025-says-housebuilder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/311471\/","title":{"rendered":"Early signs of housing market recovery after sluggish 2025, says housebuilder"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK housing market is showing \u201cearly signs\u201d of recovery, Crest Nicholson has said, despite warning over low levels of demand and after missing its profit expectations for the year.<\/p>\n

The Surrey-based housebuilder said it had seen inquiries pick up since the end of 2025.<\/p>\n

It nonetheless gave a downbeat assessment of the market over the past year, pointing to tougher conditions that have prevailed even though interest rates and inflation have eased.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe housing market remained sluggish throughout 2025 compared with much of the previous decade, with comparatively high mortgage rates, low consumer confidence and an absence of meaningful government support all contributing to the depressed levels of demand,\u201d the company said in its full-year results announcement.<\/p>\n

The company also indicated that there could be \u201cmaterial uncertainty\u201d over its position as a going concern if trading worsens further.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Crest said it currently expects to meet all its banking covenants, but could breach these by April in a \u201csevere but plausible\u201d scenario.<\/p>\n

It also stressed that it \u201cmaintains good relationships and a regular dialogue with all its lenders, and is confident that an amendment to its covenants would be secured if necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n

But its accounts said that this is \u201cnot guaranteed\u201d and could therefore impact the firm\u2019s ability to continue.<\/p>\n

Crest, a developer of new build homes and communities, said it completed the sale of 1,691 homes in the year to the end of October, about a 10th fewer than the previous year.<\/p>\n

Its pre-tax profit came in at \u00a326.5 million \u2013 about 31% less than the prior year, and below previous guidance of between \u00a328 million and \u00a338 million.<\/p>\n

This was due to there being a weaker market over the second half of the year, Crest told investors.<\/p>\n

It cautioned that this sentiment had continued into the new year, with demand failing to pick up since the autumn budget and confidence among UK consumers remaining low despite four interest rate cuts last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, since Boxing Day, forward indicators, including website visits, inquiries and appointment conversion, show early signs of improving activity levels,\u201d it highlighted.<\/p>\n

Lower interest rates and government support for housebuilding should help improve affordability and supply in the longer term, according to the business.<\/p>\n

2026 will be a \u201ctransitional year in a difficult market\u201d, boss Martyn Clark said, with the firm focusing on a range of \u201cself-help measures\u201d to get through.<\/p>\n

Crest closed one divisional office in December which resulted in about 50 redundancies.<\/p>\n

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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK housing market is showing \u201cearly signs\u201d of recovery, Crest Nicholson has said, despite warning over low…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[177],"tags":[79,152150,18,152151,3847,19,5389,17,234,235,1658],"class_list":["post-311471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-crest-nicholson","tag-eire","tag-housebuilder","tag-housing","tag-ie","tag-interest-rates","tag-ireland","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-property"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115983955022951151","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}