Persimmon customer focus sees sales drop

Legally completed sales volumes at Persimmon in the first half of the year reduced by 6% year-on-year to 7,584 homes as the firm continues its drive to prioritise customer care.

In a trading statement issued today covering the third quarter of the year, the firm said: “To support our customer care improvement plans, we have continued to restrict the release of new homes for sale in higher demand areas until construction reaches the appropriate advanced stage, both on selected new sites and, in some cases, on existing sites. As expected, this has reduced the number of sales reservations that earlier release would have delivered and resulted in the group having around 5% lower average active sales outlets year on year, at around 350 sites.”

Persimmon expects this approach to result in a similar situation in the second half of the year, but second half volumes will still be a little higher than the first six months.

The firm said that trading has continued to be resilient through the second half of the year with the group's average weekly private sales reservation rate per site standing at about 0.67, in line with last year. “We …