House-builder Persimmon said it sees hopeful signs for Britain's housing market but warned that the recovery is fragile.
Britain's biggest housebuilder by market value said today the number of visitors to its sites fell 13 per cent compared with a 20 per cent drop before Christmas, and that cancellation rates fell to 19 per cent from 30 per cent.
But it said the number of prospective customers buying homes remained challenging as people take a wait-and-see approach, with mortgage lending criteria getting stricter and with a grim outlook for house prices.
"It's been a very cautious start to the year. All indicators we use have improved week on week . . . so we see certainty and confidence come back to the market, but it'll take some time for us to catch up because we came into a new year with such a low forward order book," Chief Executive Mike Farley said.
Persimmon posted a 1 per cent rise in 2007 pre-tax profit to £585.1 million, compared with analysts' forecasts of between £575 million and £600 million.
The group said that its order book for 2008 fell by 19 per cent to £1.05 billion from £1.3 billion a year ago and the timing of sales and completion would be more weighted to the second half than usual.