By Adela Suliman
LONDON: British housebuilders have not scaled back construction plans in the three months since the country voted to leave the European Union, data showed on Thursday, despite central bank forecasts for a sharp slowdown in housing investment.
Registrations of new homes – a preliminary step before building begins – came to 35,953 in the third quarter, unchanged from the same period last year, the National House Building Council said.
“Following a quiet July, registrations bounced back in August and September as the industry shrugged off early nervousness following the vote to leave the EU,” Mike Quinton, chief executive of NHBC said.
The NHBC’s figures add to signs from other sectors of the economy that the shock of the June 23 vote to leave the EU has only had a temporary effect on business activity.
The Bank of England said in August that growth in housing investment this year would drop to 1.25 percent from the 4 percent it had forecast before the referendum.
The NHBC said 5 percent more houses were built by its members in the three months to September than a year earlier, and a separate survey of purchasing managers in the construction industry on Wednesday showed the fastest growth in seven months.
The third-quarter new home registrations did mark a fall from the second quarter, when 40,734 building plans were registered. But the NHBC figures are not seasonally adjusted, and the third-quarter data often shows a summer lull.
Nonetheless, there are some darker signals. The construction industry data on Wednesday showed slowing order books and soaring costs, while Britain’s second-biggest house builder Persimmon said it would slow the pace of new land purchases due to Brexit worries.
There were also very sharp regional variations, with housing starts in London – where the financial sector is seen as vulnerable to Brexit – down 45 percent on the year.
“If you take London out of the equation … actually registrations grew by 3 percent,” Quinton said.
Registrations in Scotland fell a similar amount to London, while there were big gains in southeast England and parts of northern England, chiming with regional patterns reported last month by property valuers. (Editing by David Milliken)
Source: Reuters