McCarthy & Stone has warned that is will miss City profit forecasts after a slowdown in the housing market. In a statement the company said: “It was difficult at this stage to estimate how much lower the level of completions might be but it could be of the order of 10%.” Executive chairman Keith Lovelock said: “Older people are less decisive, and they feel there is a lot of uncertainty around and they are thinking ‘are interest rates going to go up or down, and what is going to happen to my pension.’” Lovelock said McCarthy was in a particularly difficult position because almost all of its customers needed to sell their house to buy a retirement home. Shares in the company fell seven pence to 560p. (Times, FT)