Good day, and welcome to the Barratt Redrow trading update call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to David Thomas. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this trading update call. Steven and Mike are as usual with me. I would like to start off by thanking our employees, our subcontractors, and our suppliers for both their commitment and enthusiasm in delivering what has been a really excellent performance throughout this period. It truly is a team effort. The housing market has remained strong throughout the period, and we have seen this right across the country. Our sales performance has reflected the strong demand with the sales rate at 0.93, 12% ahead of the 0.83 rate in the same period last year. We have also seen underlying house price inflation with pricing across the country maintaining or improving on the 7% estimate we reported during the first half of the financial year.
You will see that completions in the period at 4,625 were just over 3% ahead of last year. This was very much in line with our plans and reflected the return to more normal seasonality. Our order book is in a great position with 15,821 homes ahead 6.6% on the same point last year, with the value of our order book at £4.4 billion, 18.6% ahead of the prior year. While the market and our sales performance have been strong, so too has our build performance. Our site teams and subcontractors continue to drive improved build output, helped by increased use of our standard house types and modern methods of construction.
In the period, our teams delivered 362 equivalent homes per average week, 12.8% ahead of the 321 homes in the prior year period. As a result, our build output in FY2022 to date equated to 346 equivalent homes per week, up 13.8% on the 304 year to date in the prior year. Very importantly, our construction teams are delivering growth in build output without compromising build quality and customer service. This has been demonstrated. First, we have ranked number one amongst the major house builders for the last 12 months on the NHBC's Construction Quality Index. Secondly, we have, for the 13th consecutive year, been awarded five stars by our customers. This is a unique achievement amongst the national house builders.
Our sales and build performance puts us in a very strong position to deliver both current year completion guidance and to create a very solid platform for delivering growth in FY2023. Turning now to build cost inflation. We highlighted at the interims, we expected total build cost inflation of 6% in FY2022. While the build cost inflation outlook is uncertain, we do anticipate it will remain at elevated levels over the coming months, with suppliers adopting more dynamic pricing primarily as a result of energy cost volatility. Our priority remains supply security, and we will continue to work with our supply chain partners to secure good product allocation.
With improved fixed cost efficiency through the second half weighting of completions and around 7% sales price inflation within our forward order book entering the second half, we continue to expect the net impact of build cost inflation and house price inflation to be neutral or positive in the second half. Now, moving on to building safety. We have said consistently over the last few years that we do not think that leaseholders should pay to remediate cladding. We announced last month that we had pledged to support leaseholders by funding the remediation of buildings which we developed, as well as paying the Residential Property Developer Tax.
We are now working with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to agree the necessary legal documentation and agree a fair approach to remediation, particularly around a robust and independent arbitration process. The subsequent DLUHC announcement on the thirteenth of April around an additional Building Safety Levy is, however, something which we argue the government should reconsider. We believe that the levy is both unjust and disproportionate. It further punishes the industry which was not responsible for most of the historical buildings or the related building safety issues. Also, it fails once again to effectively allocate the cost of remediation to those responsible. As you would expect, we are making our views clear to DLUHC.
Our financial position remains very strong, with net cash at GBP 0.7 billion at the end of April, and we continue to expect to report net cash at between GBP 1 billion and GBP 1.1 billion at our 30th of June year-end. Now looking ahead and the outlook. Firstly, reflecting strong trading and our build success, we are on track to deliver our unchanged guidance for FY2022 of between 18,000 and 18,250 total completions. As a result, we would expect the trading outturn for FY22 to be in line with the board's expectations. We are also in very good shape with substantial net cash, a very strong forward sales position, and an excellent land bank.
Our building sales teams are focused on delivering high-quality sustainable homes and developments, and we are always putting the customers at the heart of everything we do. The result will be FY22 completions ahead of those that we achieved in FY19, with then further planned growth in completions in FY23 towards our medium term target of 20,000 homes. We clearly recognize that macro uncertainties exist, particularly the impact of the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, and interest rates. As an industry, we also face increased taxation, the ongoing challenges around build cost inflation, and the future withdrawal of Help to Buy. However, the overall strength of the housing market, our operational performance shown since the onset of COVID, and our strong financial position gives us a platform and flexibility to react to the challenges and opportunities in the remainder of FY22 and beyond.
Overall, a very strong and pleasing performance that positions us well, and we will now be very happy to take your questions. Thank you.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. A voice prompt on the phone line will indicate when your line is open. Please state your name before posing your question. Again, press star one to ask a question. We'll take our first question. Please go ahead.
Morning. Three questions if I could please. The first just around pricing. You made a comment there, David, in the opening remarks, but if I ask it slightly differently, if we look at the average selling price from the February order book to today, I think it's about 3% higher. Would you say that's a decent indication of what like-for-like pricing has done in those few months? When we look at the absolute price in the order book, I think GBP 368 for the private business, again, is there anything abnormal in that, or would you say that's a decent platform for us to be thinking about as the start point for FY23, really, given that we're nearly at year-end? Second question was around the margin in the second half.
Just given the comments there around price cost, higher volumes in the second half. Is your opinion of whether gross margin in H2 might drop from slightly versus where we were in early Feb? Do you think we might be quite close now to the 25% of H1? Then finally, just around outlets. I think 326 to date in the second half, but you're still saying that you think you could be slightly up, I think, year-on-year at June. Just to confirm, that would mean the outlets at, I think, would be around the 360 mark at the end of next month. Is that right? I guess if so, what's getting us there? Thank you.
Will, hi. Good morning. Okay. I think if I just cover the outlet question very briefly, and then perhaps it might pick up in terms of the private average selling price and the margin for the second half. I mean, I think the short answer on outlets is yes. I mean, we've seen some delay on outlets, but overall for June, we are confident that we will get back to a slightly improved position on a year-on-year basis. I mean, I think just to expand on that slightly, Will, two points. One, I mean, bear in mind that, you know, we're coming off a base of 340 or such outlets. We're talking about, you know, one or two outlets making a difference in terms of the percentage movements on outlets.
It's kind of fine margins. Then the second point is that we see a healthy supply of outlets coming through in the first half of next year as well. Clearly, you've seen our land approval numbers, if you look over the last couple of years. We're very confident that we have outlets coming on stream, but we do have to recognize that the rate of sale is way beyond the rate of sale that we would have anticipated, even if you went back six or nine months ago. Thanks, Will. I'll pass you over to Mike.
Thanks, Dave. Good morning, Will. If I take the pricing question first. When we spoke at the half year, we were flagging that the embedded house price inflation in the order book was just a touch over 7%. I think as we sit here today, it's probably moved forward very slightly from that position. But, you know, we're still seeing those levels of house price inflation coming through. But when we look at the average selling prices for this year into next, you know, the average selling price on a private basis for this year is gonna be in the low GBP 340,000s. And that's, you know, it'll be similar to that next year. I don't really see that moving significantly. Then just moving on to margin.
We had said at the half year that the margin would be lower in the second half than the first, and that was always as we had planned it to be. I think that still holds true. You know, we won't be delivering a 25% margin in the second half as we'd previously said. In terms of the dynamics between sales prices and build costs, we are able to cover the build cost inflation in the second half through the house price inflation. Clearly, to the extent that we perform to the upper end of the completions guidance that we've given in that range, we're obviously able to cover some of our fixed costs in a better way.
There is some opportunity in the operating margin if we're able to do that. Really, I think the key takeaway from today is that we're not really changing guidance on any of those numbers compared to the guidance that we gave at the half year.
Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks, Will.
If you find your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two, and we'll take our next question. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning. Aynsley Lammin from Investec. Just two from me, please. First of all, just coming back to the Building Safety Levy, obviously, and understandably pushing back a bit on that, as you've said today. Is there any more kind of indication around what that levy might be in terms of, you know, the amount and also when it gets applied? Will it impact your current existing land bank, or do you think it's going to be on kind of future applications? Just interested to hear a bit more color around where the government seems to be guiding on that. Secondly, just curious about the land market. Obviously, build cost inflation running at elevated levels, macro risk. I mean, are you seeing any of that feed through into a kind of calmer land market?
Is it still very competitive? What's pricing doing in the land market generally? Thanks.
Aynsley, hi. Good morning. If I start on the Building Safety Levy, and then I'll pass over to Steven just in terms of an overview for the land market. I mean, just a little bit of color on the Building Safety Levy. I mean, we've touched on it in the statement, I've touched on it this morning, and as I said, we're making our views on it clear to government. The timing and the quantum isn't clear, but the reality is that when the Secretary of State made the announcement on the thirteenth of April, he referenced a GBP 3 billion Building Safety Levy to be generated over a ten-year period.
We think broadly, if that is applied to all, residential developments, that they may be looking at their annual target of 300,000 homes per annum, and therefore, you know, a broad indication that it could be GBP 1,000 per property. But, we've said that we just feel that it is disproportionate, and it is just raising a further levy on the industry rather than actually getting the various actors around the industry who should be paying to pay what they're meant to pay. If I pass over to Steven.
Yeah, morning, Ainsley. Yeah, in terms of the land market, very much the same as it was back in February. Good opportunities coming through. It's a highly competitive market. It's not untypical that we would see something like, you know, 20 bids for some of the sites we're looking at. Clearly we're seeing a lot of, you know, a good proportion of off-market deals come through, which we're able to negotiate off market. I think another sort of trend tends to be the larger sites, typically sort of sites we're looking at these days are sort of 500-1,000 plots, which is a function of the planning system.
Again, that's sort of very, very useful for us in terms of dual branding and outlet numbers going forward. As I say, a good market, good progress is being made. We're on track to deliver our guidance of 18,000-20,000 approvals in the year. We're very happy with the way the land market's doing.
Great. Thank you very much.
We'll take our next question. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. It's Chris Millington at Numis. A few quick ones if I could. The first one's just around pricing, and there's been a couple of reports about down valuations ticking up a little bit recently. I don't know if you've experienced the same, but perhaps you could just comment on whether or not there's any pushback on pricing. Second one just really about mortgage availability and pricing, if you noticed any big change there. Perhaps you could also just comment on labor availability. We've obviously talked quite a lot around materials and build costs as a whole, but I'd be interested in your thoughts on where we are on labor availability.
Chris, hi. Sorry, Chris, can I just clarify the second question about mortgage availability and pricing?
Yeah. Just really if you've seen any change in your experience over the last few months? You know, obviously, we've seen a tick up in base rates, and there's been talk of, you know, slightly more restricted lending practices. I'm just wondering if you've experienced anything to that effect.
Okay. I understand. If I pick up on down valuations and mortgage availability, and then Steven will pick up in terms of the labor availability. Chris, I think the short answer on down valuations is that we've not seen any changes in the trends. I mean, as you know, the reality for us is that the vast majority of the houses that we sell are subject to a mortgage valuation. We monitor down valuation trends on a by house, by site, by division on a week-to-week basis and have done over a very long period of time. No, we've not seen any change in the trend. I saw the recent reports that down valuations were running at a national level at one in thirty.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I think when you stand back and look at that figure, well, it doesn't seem to be a particularly dramatic figure compared to what we've seen historically, you know, perhaps in 2009, one in four properties being down valued. We do monitor it. We haven't seen any changes in the trends. In terms of mortgage availability, I mean, just two sort of headline comments. One, clearly, mortgage pricing has moved up to the extent that bank base rates have moved up, and you would expect that to continue to be a trend. Overall availability of higher loan to values has improved if you look over the last 12 months. That is for us, a really key point, you know. Particularly for the Barratt brand, also to a lesser extent for David Wilson.
You know, our average customer is taking a higher loan to value product through the Barratt brand. Therefore, as we've seen the tapering of Help to Buy, where second-time buyers have dropped out of the schemes, clearly, if the banks want to continue to lend, they need to offer higher loan to value products. We're absolutely seeing that support come into the market, both in terms of variable rate and also increasingly in terms of fixed rate products, which I think has got a particular appeal to the customer with regard to the present backdrop.
Mm-hmm.
Steven, if I pass on to labor availability.
Yeah. Good morning, Chris. In terms of labor availability, again, no real change. We're, you know, pleased. We've got all the labor we need across our sites. We're typically operating with between 20,000 and 21,000 trades across all our sites, which is probably one of the highest levels we've ever operated with, and hence the productivity levels we're talking about have been achieved. I mean, clearly, labor are attracted to well-organized sites with a good flow of materials, and we've got a good flow of materials on our sites so that, you know, they can see the continuity of workload ahead, and they tend to be sticking on the sites. Once they get on the sites, they're happy. They're seeing lots of work for the next 6, 9, 12 months.
I think one of the things we've probably seen slightly different in the last six months is we've seen perhaps more of a return of overseas labor into the London and Southeast market. That has increased from where it was perhaps 12 months ago. We monitor the overseas labor content. Clearly, in the regions, it's, you know, predominantly UK labor, but London and Southeast have seen a greater return from overseas. All the labor is in place we need to produce the unit guidance we're giving.
Totally understand that. Steven, are we seeing any acceleration in the rate of inflation in labor at the moment?
Generally, we're sort of similar. I think that similar across most trades. We've probably seen a bit more in terms of ground workers, the guys who've put the foundations in because there's a lot of foundations to be put in over the next 12, 18 months so. Nothing really from what we've seen over the last 12 months.
I think, Chris, as we said in February, you know, that labor inflation overall is much more subdued than material inflation. I think that continues then to be the case. Well, okay. Chris, thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you.
We'll take our next question. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Ami Galla from Citi. I've got two questions, please. The first one on build cost inflation. Can you give us some color on the product categories where you're seeing more dynamic pricing from suppliers? And at this stage, is there any number that you can give us in terms of how much of the sort of material costs have been fixed for the next six months? My second question is just on Help to Buy. If you could give us some color on your exposure in the current reservations?
Ami, hi. Good morning. If I start with Help to Buy, and then I'll pass over to Mike in terms of build cost inflation. In terms of Help to Buy, first of all, you know, as you know, we came from a situation where you looked at private completions for the group. We were running at one point between 45% and 50% of private completions were on Help to Buy. And then during 2021, we saw a significant tapering of the scheme. Tapering in two regards. First of all, second-time buyers were no longer eligible for the scheme. And secondly, there was regional price caps introduced around the country.
Ranging from close to 190,000 in the north of the country to 600,000 in London, but from a previous base of 600,000 overall. That was a very significant hurdle for us to go over. That meant that as we reported at the half year, that private completion levels were dropping down to around 20%, just a shade above 20%. That's the position that we go into. I mean, we see the end of the Help to Buy program is in March 2023. Clearly, as we outlined in the statement, we won't be selling right up to March 2023. In practice, we will stop selling under the Help to Buy program around six months prior to that.
Therefore, we'll start to see that tapering coming in at the beginning of the autumn. When we look at consumer demand, and going back to the answer on the previous point from Chris, we're also seeing good mortgage availability, and that gives us a lot of confidence. Plus, the industry launched Deposit Unlock last year, and Deposit Unlock is providing a 95% loan-to-value for customers and is supported by major banks such as Nationwide, which again adds to our confidence that we can go over that hurdle well for easily. If I pass over to Mike in terms of build cost inflation.
Thanks, David. Yeah, I mean, in terms of product categories, I mean, it's really focused on those with the higher proportion of energy input because of the volatility in energy prices. You know, if you think of things like steel and obviously brick, you've seen the brick suppliers talk about what they're doing on pricing. Obviously with things like fuel costs increasing, then the transport component of all materials has been increasing as well. Looking forward in terms of what's fixed, I mean, we're going through those negotiations with suppliers, you know, all the time really. You know, they're ongoing conversations.
We'll be able to talk a little bit more after year-end around, you know, what we're seeing in terms of the market for FY 2023. You know, as you would expect, we're in conversations with suppliers all the time at the moment.
Thank you.
Thanks, Ami.
We'll take our next question. Please go ahead.
Hi, it's Andy Murphy from Edison. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got three quick ones. Just on the salary review that you introduced, I was wondering if you could talk about your thinking behind the timing of bringing it forward and what level of rise that was. Second part of that, does that just apply to your own employees or does that go to subcontractors as well? And also around that area, has it any other, the other elements you introduced that you mentioned had the effect of reducing staff turnover? Second question was about the 20,000 target. I was wondering if you could give us a little bit of color around what you see as the biggest challenges in the next couple of years to achieving that.
Then finally, on Help to Buy, can you talk about whether you expect any sort of extension at any point or whether the government are fixed in terms of not replacing it with anything or whether in fact, you know, being a cheeky, whether you think perhaps this might be something that might reintroduce a bit closer to the next election?
Andy, hi. Hi, good morning. Andy, if I take the Help to Buy and talk about the salary review, and maybe Steven can just talk about the kind of main pillars that we have in terms of our growth towards 20,000 completions and just give you some color on that around how we're gonna do that and some of the challenges. I think first of all, in terms of the Help to Buy extension, I think a very simple answer in that we do not expect the Help to Buy program to be extended, and we do not expect the government to introduce any alternative program. I think that that's the best way for us to operate.
If anything else happens, it will clearly be a positive, but that's the way that we are operating. As I said in the previous question, I think we're given a lot of confidence by the way we transitioned in 2021 and by the banks' appetite to lend and clearly the ongoing consumer demand that we're seeing. In terms of the salary review, I mean, I think it's something that, you know, we want to highlight. I mean, we do see that clearly our employees are absolutely key. If you look at our business priorities, we set that out very clearly within our business priorities. We have consistently sought to put in place an overall package for our employees that is attractive.
Bringing forward the salary increase from the first of July to the first of April was just a response to what we see as being challenges around inflation and cost of living for our employees. The level of review was at 5%. We have said that we expect in 2023 to revert to a normal review cycle, i.e., to go with a July review cycle. It was only for employees, not for subcontractors. I mean, subcontractors would just be an ongoing set of negotiations as Steven touched on, you know, with ground workers and the other categories of subcontractors.
In terms of turnover and no different to, I think any industry has not seen any different trends in that during 2020, we saw extraordinarily low levels of turnover, really running for pretty much 12 months from the onset of the pandemic. The industry and we would have been no different, would have gone from turnover that was in the order of 15%-20% per annum down to turnover that was in the order of 5%-10% per annum. Certainly in my time with the group, we've never seen turnover at a 5%-10% level.
I think what we've experienced in 2021 running into 2022 has been a bit of catch up where people are looking up for promotions, and if they're not going to get the promotion with their existing company, they're going to look to move. But we've certainly seen some reduction in turnover levels in terms of the trend of turnover levels, if you look over the last quarter or six months. But that was not the driver in terms of the salary review. The driver was very much about cost of living. Steven?
Yeah, yes, Ryan. In terms of growing the business, we've clearly been planning to grow the business for a number of years. We've put a lot of things in place. For example, in 2016, we redesigned our product, we simplified it, we brought in greater levels of standardization, and that is really paying big dividends to us at the moment, hence, you know, the productivity. You know, another aspect of that, in terms of pillars is we've increased our levels of MMC. You know, in 2019, we acquired Oregon, and that again is making a big benefit to the business. You know, the Oregon and timber frame production has increased, and we're increasing towards 25% and then on to 30% going forward.
More recently, the Gladman acquisition has sort of helped in terms of we'll continue to produce additional land for the group as well as our own strategic land bank. The divisions are structured. You know, we've got a lot of divisions producing 750, even up to 800 units. We've got the network of divisions to deliver us the 20,000 units over the next few years, and we're well on course to achieve that. We're quite happy with the way we've structured the business, simplified product, increased high levels of MMC. We've also widened the product range in both Barratt and David Wilson. We've got two superb product and brands which have a full market offering, which will give us that incremental growth going forward.
Right. Thanks for your time, gentlemen.
Thanks, Andy.
I'll take our next question. Please go ahead.
Morning, gents. It's Clyde at Peel Hunt. I think I've got two, if I may, or two sort of areas. One I suppose was whether you've seen any regional differences or sort of variances between demand for bigger or smaller properties over the last few months, any sort of changes worthy of commenting. The other one was around obviously the sales rate. I mean, it's a big number, 0.93. As you said, David, it's comfortably up on last year. How are you thinking about that? Obviously, it ties in with the construction rate, obviously your ability to buy and replace the land.
Have you really debated that, you know, I suppose, in-house decision to slow that rate down by pushing prices a bit harder, which would obviously impact margins, but also impact the sales rate and possibly change that volume number slightly as well?
Okay. Clyde, if I just pick up both of those. I mean, in terms of regional differences, I mean, I said in the overview, and we said in the statement that these strong trends we've been seeing across the country, if you look at the regional profile, I would say that as a generalization over the last two or three years, we've seen a slightly softer regional profile in terms of London and the Southeast. Not necessarily so much in terms of demand, but probably a little on demand and certainly on pricing. We haven't seen the pricing improvements, but clearly, we had seen the pricing improvements previously. It's largely a question of timing.
I think the only thing I would call out in terms of the last six months has probably been a little bit of a pickup in terms of interest in apartments and interest in London, which I think in the initial stages of COVID, you know, people were saying, well, that interest has kind of died away. You know, it's not quite calling the end of apartments in London, but, you know, there was certainly some commentary down that line. We have seen some pickup, and I think that's just reflective when you look at travel numbers and you look at office numbers, and you just see that, there's a lot more people back in the office and, you know. I think that's something that I would pick up as a trend.
Again, not really a pricing trend, more of a volume trend. In terms of the trade between volume and value, I mean, therein lies the challenge of every business. We debate that on a week-to-week basis. All of our management teams will debate that on a week-to-week basis. There clearly is an optimum point. We, as you know, we're a price taker from the secondhand market, and we are subject to valuations as we touched on earlier, on all of the houses that we sell. We will try to nudge prices forward. We also need to maintain rates of sale, and we're continually trying to balance that on a week-to-week and a month-to-month basis.
Okay, thank you. Any differences in terms of bigger properties versus smaller ones at all? Or no real discernible differences?
No. I think what I would say, Clyde, is that. Again, you've seen all the commentary. I think there is a world of difference between what people are searching for online and what people are actually buying. Because ultimately, that comes down to a question of affordability and what people can afford to buy. General trends that you've seen reported on Rightmove, people searching for larger properties, larger gardens, people searching for properties in Cornwall. I think at one point, Cornwall was the number one search on Rightmove. I mean, that's a world of difference between what transactions are taking place. We saw certainly that if there was a move to more of a regional living as opposed to urban center living. I mean, we're obviously incredibly well positioned for that.
Equally, we've got a strong presence in terms of our London business, and I think it's right that we have that overall product balance. So far, I think that's the right kind of positioning to be in.
Perfect. Thank you, David.
Thanks.
We'll take our next question. Please go ahead.
Morning. Just, this is one question from me. Just in terms of thinking about sort of current indicators I suppose. Are you hearing any sort of signs of nervousness at all from sales staff on the ground as people sort of worry about kind of I suppose cost of living, mortgage rates? Also is that translating at all into maybe kind of internet searches just sort of dying away a bit as I suppose people reappraise their priorities in the current climate? Just wondering if you're seeing any signs of any slowing at all in any of those.
Charlie, hi. Hi, good morning. I think just on cost of living, I mean, we can all see that there are some real challenges in terms of inflation, energy prices, cost of living. You know, a real squeeze on incomes. I would say that, for example, we do see that in terms of feedback from our employees. As we touched on earlier, I think it was a real driver for us moving our salary increase and accelerating it by three months. Also putting through a salary increase at a level that we wouldn't have anticipated certainly even six months ago, certainly not 12 months ago. A higher salary increase and bringing it forward. When you look at consumer behaviors in terms of housing, I would say no.
That isn't something that is really playing into consumer behaviors at this point in time. We do recognize, as I touched on in the overview, you know, that whether it's inflation or whether it's interest rates, these are all things that can dampen consumer enthusiasm for housing. As the market has demonstrated over the last couple of years, I think the fundamentals are very strong. You know, there is a strong demand for housing, and there is a lack of housing availability. You can see that in the stock numbers, whether it be new build stock or whether it be the availability of secondhand houses. And therefore, that is creating that tension in terms of both volume and pricing on housing.
Yeah. Thank you very much.
We'll take our next question. Please go ahead.
This is John Fraser-Andrews, HSBC. Thanks for this. Two for me, please. Can I be heard? I'm just not sure actually. I think I might be-
Yeah, John. No, John, we can hear you loud and clear.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks, David. First one for me is the construction equivalent units to achieve the near 5,000 or 4,800 completions that you need to the top end of guidance. What kind of equivalent unit number do you need for the last two months? That's the first one. The second question is, given where you are estimating the net cash to land at the year end, given that there's much greater visibility on building safety outgoings, and you are in a strong position on land, do you see you are in a position to pay a surplus capital return after the year end for 2022?
John, thank you. Steven will pick up in terms of the construction equivalent units, and Mike will pick up in terms of capital returns. Steven?
Morning, John. I think the easiest way to explain what we need to do for the sort of remaining ten or so weeks in terms of production weeks left in the year is. If you look at the first half, we produced an average of 341 EUs per week. So far in the second half, which is our most productive period of the year, we've averaged 362 EUs per week. That takes into account, you know, January, which is always a bit of a sort of slow start back after Christmas and a bit of a wind up of production, and takes into account a couple of weeks over Easter where there's a higher proportion of holidays.
Typically, we've been producing over 400 houses per week in the last sort of 6-10 weeks, other than the sort of Easter period. Production is exactly where we need it to be. There's only a relatively, you know, small proportion of that, which is what you would term as being collectible production for the full year. All the sites are geared up. They're all units for the full year at a pretty advanced stage of construction, and we don't see any issues in delivering the production we need to deliver the guidance we're forecasting.
John, if I just pick up on returns then. Probably a few points I'd make. The first, obviously, we changed our dividend policy at the half year to reduce cover to 1.75 times by FY 2024. That equates to, broadly speaking, about GBP 250 million increase in our capital returns over that period. The second is clearly we've made the commitment on building safety at GBP 350 million-GBP 400 million, which again, you know, that's a substantial commitment in terms of cash that the business is making. Then thirdly, don't forget that we've also got by year-end, we'll have about GBP half a billion of Land Creditors still on the balance sheet.
We're looking at all of those things in the round. As we said at the half year, and our position hasn't changed, the board review capital returns regularly. If we think it's appropriate to make a change, then we would do so. I think we do that from a position that, you know, we've already made substantial commitments. I think the other thing is in terms of the land market, you know, we still see lots of attractive opportunities to deploy cash into land. We're obviously able to secure slightly better pricing on that land if we pay, you know, on upfront rather than deferring cash over the years.
There are still lots of very good opportunities in the market that we want to take advantage of to help prime that growth as we move towards 20,000 homes. You know, in the round, I don't think our position on that has changed since we spoke a few weeks ago, Rio.
Thanks, Mike. Thank you for that.
Thanks very much. Thank you.
We'll take our next question. Please go ahead.
It's Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. Maybe a few questions. Just actually a follow-up there. Did you just say that you thought Land Creditors would end at GBP 500 million by the year-end? It just strikes me as a rather low number. The second question is perhaps on gross margins. So I think you're sort of saying you're gonna be, I don't know, between 24%-25%. Do you expect that to essentially unwind everything else equal back to the sort of 23% level that you're buying at? Appreciating that there's obviously lots of moving parts, but just to give us an idea what the direction of travel is given the probably positive price cost that we are currently observing. Then maybe finally, you alluded in the statement, you talked about Gladman going well.
Can you just sort of give us an update where we are there, integration, land pull through, maybe the profit that you expect from that business, now that you've had it, under ownership for a few months? Thank you.
Okay. Gregor, hi, good morning. Just a point of form, Gregor. I'm not sure that you can create a question just off the answer from a previous question. I will get Mike to answer that question on the land creditors shortly. Mike will also pick up the point with regard to gross margins. If Steven starts maybe just in terms of an overview on Gladman.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Good morning, Gregor. Yeah, in terms of Gladman, we're really pleased with the way things have gone so far. We're only three months into the integration process, but it's running exactly as per plan. In terms of how things are going, well, you know, the plan was to convert a number of promotion agreements into either preemptions or options and in some cases, freehold purchases, and we've secured a number of agreements to progress with that and exactly as per our plans. We're very happy with the way things are going, and we expect to give more of an update at our full year in terms of progress summary. That's always good.
Thank you.
Gregor, just picking up on the other two points. I mean, my half a billion comment earlier was using some very judicious rounding. You're right. It's gonna be a touch higher than that at the year-end, but that will come through in due course. It'll be within the guided range in terms of the overall percentages that we give. In terms of gross margins, I mean, as I said, I think a couple of times earlier, we'll probably come back and talk a little bit more about the dynamics of house price and build cost inflation after our year-end. I don't want to sort of give too much you know forward guidance on that at this stage.
We're not sort of changing any numbers as a result of the statement today. I mean, clearly, if we're buying land at 23%, then over time you would expect, you know, the gross margins to trend in that direction. As we said at the half, we do expect the gross margin in the second half to be lower than in the first. You know, in the round, that's the direction of travel in the short term. As I say, we'll come back with a little bit more color on what you can expect, you know, next year and beyond at the year-end.
All right. Thank you. Appreciate the answers.
Thanks. Thanks, Gregor.
It appears there are no additional questions at this time.
Okay, excellent. Thank you very much for dialing in. Thank you very much for the questions, and we will return to talk to you again in July. Thank you.
I mean-
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