Britain's biggest homebuilder Barratt Developments said it plans to increase the number of home completions in the current fiscal year to pre-pandemic levels, allaying concerns about a cooling housing market.
Cheap loans, a more than year-long tax holiday expiring this month, and a preference for larger homes from those who saved up during the pandemic boosted UK's housing market.
But some data is pointing to a cooling in the sector recently.
Barratt chief executive David Thomas said in a statement that there is a "very strong demand for houses across the country".
He added that the company is also working towards its medium-term target of 20,000 home completions a year.
Barratt said it plans to increase wholly owned completions to between 17,000 and 17,250 in the financial year to the end of June 2022, with an additional 750 joint-venture completions also targeted.
The company completed 17,856 units in the pre-pandemic fiscal year of 2019.
The homebuilder said its forward sales - a key housing metric accounting for homes to be delivered and paid for at a later date - as of August 22 stood at £3.94 billion, compared with £3.71 billion in the 2020 period and £3.04 billion in the comparable period in 2019.
The FTSE 100 firm also declared a final dividend of 21.9 pence per share.
Last month, the UK's second-largest homebuilder Persimmon and third player Taylor Wimpey also forecast robust housing demand even after the expiry of the tax holiday.
Barratt said its annual pre-tax profit came in at £812.2m, compared with £491.8m in the pandemic-hit 2020 fiscal, but lower than the £909.8m reported in the prior year.
