Good day, and welcome to Barratt Developments May trading update conference call. Please note this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be in listen only. You will have the opportunity to ask questions, and this can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero, and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to David Thomas, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks very much for joining us. As usual, I have Steven and Mike with me. Just before I begin, I'd just like to take a moment to thank all of our employees, also our subcontractors and our suppliers for their commitment and determination in delivering what has been a very good performance through this period. Back in February, we outlined that the net private reservation rate from the first of January to the twenty-ninth of January had bounced back to 0.49 per active outlet, from 0.3 in the final quarter of 2022. Clearly that was a strong recovery. I'm very pleased to report today that over the subsequent 12 weeks of trading through to the twenty-third of April, activity has improved again with the net private reservation rate at 0.71.
When we look at the whole period from the 1st of January to the 23rd of April, the net private reservation rate was 0.65, down 30% on the strong prior year period. Reservation activity in the period has clearly reflected the more challenging backdrop, particularly for first-time buyers. We have seen resilient demand amongst existing homeowners. Our reservation rate has also been complemented by increased multi-unit sales into the private rented sector, as well as additional private unit sales to registered social landlords. The net private reservation rate into the private rented sector, along with the RSLs, equated to a reservation rate of 0.08 in the period. Turning to our sales outlet position. Average outlets in the period were 375, showing a very sharp increase from 326 in the same period last year.
This reflected the combination of 21 new site openings in the period, as well as the slower sales rate that we're experiencing since the start of the financial year, meaning that sites have stayed open for longer. Our order book remains solid, with 11,525 homes and an order book value at just under GBP 3 billion. With the changed market backdrop, our site teams have responded very well to adjusting construction output. We constructed 303 equivalent homes on average per week over the period, down some 16% on the equivalent period in the prior year. We are continuing to manage construction activity to ensure that we have efficient working capital.
Notwithstanding the difficult economic backdrop, our sales and build performance puts us in a very strong position to deliver both current year completion guidance and to create a solid platform for completions in FY 2024. Turning now to build cost inflation. We highlighted at the interims that we expect total build cost inflation of around 9%-10% for FY 2023. This remains unchanged. While the outlook for total build cost inflation next year is uncertain, we currently anticipate the rate of total build cost inflation will slow to around 5% for FY 2024. On land approvals, we have remained highly selective, with two new sites approved and a further two sites added through planning amendment. Reflecting sites that are no longer proceeding, we've actually seen a net reduction of 1,125 plots approved in the period.
Our financial position remains strong, with net cash at GBP 0.6 billion, and we expect to report net cash at around GBP 0.9 billion at our 30th of June year-end. Our GBP 200 million share buyback program is ongoing, and to date, we have purchased 38.6 million shares at a cost of GBP 155 million. Around our commitment to build quality, customer service, and sustainability, I would particularly highlight that we've once again been awarded five stars in the HBF Awards for the 14th successive year, an achievement that is unique. Following the launch in February of our eHome2 concept home at the University of Salford, which is in partnership with Saint-Gobain, this is now moving into a phase of detailed testing under the different climate conditions.
Now looking ahead, reflecting the recovery in the reservations through the period, we remain on track to deliver total home completions of between 16.5 and 17,000 homes, including around 750 joint venture home completions. As a result, we expect trading for FY 2023 will be in line with current consensus expectations. Our business remains fundamentally strong, both operationally and financially. We are well-placed to navigate the challenges ahead, and we are focused on delivering the high quality, sustainable houses and developments needed across the country, along with delivering excellent service for our customers. Thank you. We will now be happy to take questions and the operator will open up the line. Thank you.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question from the queue, it's star two. Again, please press star one to ask a question. We will take the first question from Harry Goad from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two, please. Firstly, interesting comment you made about build cost inflation, thought you think to about 5% in the next financial year. Can you give us a little bit more color on that in terms of maybe any split between what you're seeing between labor, between different building materials? Whether there's any sort of subcontract packages you're actually seeing that are now in sort of deflationary territory. Secondly, on land, appreciate there's not much activity there right now, but where do you feel land prices need to move to before they get interesting and before they make sense again from a residual value perspective? Thank you.
Hi. Hi, good morning. Thank you. If I pick up in terms of land and then I'll pass to Mike and Steven in relation to just some thoughts overall in terms of build cost inflation. I think the key thing really with regard to land is it's not so much about looking at where prices on land should or shouldn't be. I mean, that will clearly be a function of where we end up in terms of selling prices, build cost inflation, and the rate of sale. I think for me, our withdrawal from the land market, as we demonstrated in 2016 with the referendum and again in 2020 with COVID, I think it's much more about the uncertainty and the volatility in the market.
I think the key thing for us to be back in the market is feeling that we're seeing a prolonged period of stability. When you look at our trading from 1st of January to date, you know, we are starting to build a period of stability. Whereas clearly in the final quarter to 2022, the market was just in turmoil and we were seeing a trading backdrop that we really as an industry, I think hadn't previously experienced. I don't think we're trying to call where land prices should be. I think it's much more about saying, do we believe that the market has stabilized? If I pass over to Mike initially and just give you some thoughts on the headlines of build cost.
Morning, Harry. The first thing I would say is the 5% that we're seeing for next year is the sort of early indication. Obviously, you know, there's still quite a lot of buying to do for FY 2024, but that's where we see it heading at the moment. And also to remember that that's on top of the quite strong inflation that we've seen this year. You know, we still expect inflation for this year to end at 9%-10%, as we previously said. I think in terms of the balance, labor pricing has been a bit more sticky than materials. Maybe Steven can give a bit of color on the balance.
Okay. Thanks, Mike, and good morning, Harry. Yeah, in terms of materials and labor, certainly starting to see some good price reductions on some of the commodities. Clearly the supply chain is starting to see the impacts of the general construction slowdown. Pricing is certainly less volatile and there's a lot more stability in the prices being given out. I think we mentioned in our last update that timber prices have gone back substantially, that's now started to flow through into the likes of components such as roof trusses, floor joists, flooring components, and we're starting to see price reductions typically 8%-12%, so in that region.
Likewise, steels moved significantly downwards in the last sort of two, three months, and we've seen price reductions typically, you know, 8%-10% on components such as lintels. We're not seeing any great movement yet on brick and blocks. We feel that will start to move in the next few months as the energy hedging prices start to unwind. Price point pressure would be the likes of cement-based products where we're continuing to see price pressure and that sort of impacts roof tiles and concrete type of product. Moving on to labor, no significant solid changes on labor, but we are starting to see some price movements around early stage construction such as groundworkers.
Bricklayers from subcontracted packages who are looking to sort of secure longer term workload at this point in time.
Lovely. Thanks very much.
Thank you, Harry.
The next question comes from Aynsley Lammin from Investec.
Hi, thanks. Morning, everybody. Just two questions from me as well. Firstly, just wondered if you could comment a bit on what you're seeing on pricing and use of sales incentives. Secondly, there's just been some comment, I'm sure you've seen in the press over the weekend, about potentially a kind of a Help to Buy type package coming at some point from the government. Just wondered if you've heard anything there, what your expectations are, and do you think that's needed in the market? Thanks.
Aynsley, hi, good morning. If I start in terms of Help to Buy and then I'll pass over to Mike in terms of pricing and sales incentives generally. I think on Help to Buy, you know, we've been clear about the backdrop in that the government set out a very clear roadmap for the tapering and then the termination of the Help to Buy program. Really from 2020, we've been very focused on that tapering and the way that we should run the business in light of no Help to Buy. I think from our point of view, making sure that we've got a balanced product mix.
Across all three areas of our business, whether it be David Wilson Homes or Barratt London, being able to offer something to every part of the market is very, very important from our perspective. We can see when you look at the market, as it trades presently, that the first time buyer is clearly in a much more difficult position from the point of view of affordability. I think a dual effect, one, the well-flagged, termination of the Help to Buy program effectively in October 2022, and secondly, the, clearly the dramatic repercussions from the Mini Budget at the end of September. I think the combination of those two things has meant for the first time buyer, this is a, you know, a very, very challenging market backdrop. We've, we've seen the commentary around the weekend.
Which you can say is no more than speculation. We need to really focus on our business on a week-to-week basis and not get distracted by that type of speculation. No doubt, if the government are going to do something, then, you know, they will formally announce that in due course. If I pass over to Mike.
Morning, Aynsley. I think on pricing generally, I think when you look at headline prices, they've actually been relatively stable. You know, we haven't seen significant reductions in the headline. On incentives, I mean, as we've said, I think a couple of times this year, we've been using incentives to help drive the right sales rate on a site-by-site basis. Obviously, you know, we're moving that week to week and site to site as we see how trading conditions evolve. The incentives in the sort of year to date are probably running about 6%, which is, you know, broadly consistent, I think, with what we were saying when we were out with half year results a few weeks ago. You know, they're sort of stabilized around that level.
That compares to about two in the same point last year. You know, you can see how that's increased as we've tried to drive the sales rate. The, the other number that we look at is where we have the same house type available on the same site as we did this time last year. So a sort of like for like sales basis. We've seen average selling prices down about 4% year-on-year. Again, you know, that's consistent with the movement in incentives, really.
Great. Thank you very much.
Aynsley, thank you very much.
The next question comes from Anthony Manning from Bank of America.
Hi. Good morning, thanks for the update. Just a couple of questions from me, if I may. Could you talk a bit more about the bulk sales that you've made? Is this something we should expect going forward? Was there a lot of opportunity out there for you to make those sales? Could you give us a, as best you can, an indication of the margin that they will come at? Again, just a quick one on kind of the outlet position. Obviously, it's kind of gone up with new site openings, but can you give us an indication of where you're likely to end up at the end of the year and what it's looking like for FY 2024 as well? Thank you.
Yeah. Certainly. Anthony, if I just start briefly in terms of bulk sales, and then I'll pass that over to Mike, and Mike will also pick up in terms of outlets. Just briefly, in terms of looking at private rental, I mean, we announced early in 2022 that we were going to do more from a private rental perspective. I think to put it in context, this hasn't just been a response to the events in the final quarter of 2022. It was very clearly set out that we were intending to do more private rental, and that's evolved as we moved through 2022 into 2023. If I pass over to Mike and he can talk about what we're doing and the margin and so on.
Yeah. Thanks. Morning, Anthony. Yeah, I think just in terms of context, you know, the number of units that we've we've taken in the period is less than 500 on the total. Just, you know, just trying to keep it in context. We, we look at the deals on a, you know, on a case by case basis. There is no, you know, average discount, as it were. We're, we're giving discounts of anything between, you know, zero and up to mid-teens% on headline pricing. Very much it will depend on the circumstances of the site that we're looking at. You know, if it's near completion or, you know, the number of units that are in the deal. There's no sort of set pricing on it.
Obviously we make some savings then on marketing costs and so on, because, you know, they would otherwise have been marketed for private sale. Obviously the benefit for us is that we turn capital on those on those units much faster. I think turning to outlets, we reported 375 on average for the period that we're reporting. I think we will sell through a number of outlets as we come into the year-end at the end of June. If you thought about it as sort of mid-360s for the end of the financial year, that would be the average for the year. Into next year, I think outlet numbers are actually holding up pretty well.
You know, we're pleased with the pipeline that's coming through, and we've got very little planning risk or ownership risk in FY 2024. I think the numbers will be a little bit softer than the mid 360s. You know, maybe the around the 360, high 350s mark. You know, I think that still feels to me like a pretty robust performance on outlet numbers going forward.
Thanks very much. Very useful. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Clyde Lewis from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.
Morning, gents. Just two from me. Again, really sort of focused around land. David, I think you referred to sites that you've backed away from during the period in terms of negotiations. I'd be interested to sort of hear the logic around that. Was it just simply the, you know, the new sales rate versus the margin and that return on capital hurdle was not gonna be passed, or was it more the margin side of the equation, I suppose? Then probably one for Mike in terms of sort of where current expectations are in terms of total land spend cash wise are going to be for this year.
Clyde, good morning. Yeah, as you said, Mike will pick up in terms of the land spend. I think, Clyde, first of all, in terms of land, I would say that we've, as you know, we've always been very focused on the depth of our land bank, the effectively the number of years cover that we have. We've tried to operate on ratios at around 3.5 of owned land and one year of conditional supply. I think the first driver for us in terms of stepping away from the land market is that because sales dropped so dramatically in the final quarter, reservation rate of 0.3, clearly the implied land bank lengthened dramatically.
Now, we said in February that we're always gonna have some divisions that have got more land and some divisions that have got less land. Even with that implied lengthening out to a six or seven-year land bank, we have some divisions that are short of land, and we try to look to supplement their land banks where possible. I think the length of the land bank was the primary driver as to why we would step away. I think the second driver is probably would be largely around where the sites are particularly large, and therefore you're making assumptions across 400 or 500 units in terms of pricing on selling, pricing on build and rate of sale. Those assumptions just looked unjustifiable, given what we had seen in terms of rates of sale.
I think that's very much why we would step away. As I touched on earlier, as we see, first of all, a quicker rate of sale, and we've come from 0.3 to a 12-week period at, you know, pure private rates of sale at 0.6 something plus, private rental. I think that's clearly a big forward step in terms of rates of sale. That's a positive. Secondly, it's about stability. You know, can we continue to see similar rates of sale as we move through the next six weeks, the next 12 weeks? That is what will encourage us to take steps back into the land market.
Morning, Clyde. Just on the spend. We've spent about GBP 660 million in the year to date. There's about another GBP 250 million to go. We'll be in line with the guidance that we gave of around GBP 900 million for the full year. That'll leave us with a line of credit at year-end of about GBP 400 million. That's the position there.
Okay. Perfect. Thanks, gents.
Thanks, Clyde.
We will now take the next question from Emily Biddulph from Barclays.
Hi, guys. Hope you're well. I've got two questions, please. Firstly, just coming back on the comments on rate of sale there. Can you remind us what you'd usually expect sort of normal seasonality to be? Sort of if Q1 sales rates are where they are, sort of what would be the sort of balance of sales rates through the rest of the year in a, in a normal year? Just sort of conscious that comps have been strong post-COVID and normal seasonality hasn't sort of played out in the same way. Conversely, is there an argument that in a low volume market we shouldn't be extrapolating that sort of historic seasonality and maybe things are a bit stronger than that?
Secondly, like if that's sort of how sort of sales rates do play out from here, I just wanna ask on the outlets, is that how you expect outlets to play out for the balance of the year? Is that what we should be assuming? Thanks very much.
Emily, hi, good morning. I think we're all well, I think. Thank you very much. If I just sort of start generally in terms of rate of sale, and I can just touch on outlets, which Mike has already touched on, but Mike will then pick up on rate of sale and seasonality. I mean, the first comment I made, Emily, would be that I think it is very, very difficult to just determine what is normal. I think if you start to go back and look at 10-year averages and 20-year averages, you can clearly calculate numbers and see what's happened on a 10 or a 20-year basis. The reality is, if you look over the last four or five years, we've seen some very unusual patterns.
I would say as a general rule that we had seen more and more activity happening in the market during January and February. We've said previously that we were putting marketing spend in really from Boxing Day in quite significant amounts and seeing stronger market activity. The spring selling season, in terms of the uplift, has become much more muted over the last few years. If I pass to Mike, I'm sure he will expand on that and also any further comments on outlets.
Yeah. Thanks, David. I mean, I think, Emily, we are sort of initial signs are that demand is still strong, you know, as we've come through Easter and into the, the sort of peak of the spring selling season. We reported 0.71 for the last 12 weeks today, and obviously there is a little bit of PRS and so on in there. When you look between the period that we're reporting at the end of our financial year at the end of June, I think the typical effect of seasonality would be about 10%-15% on the sales rate. You know, you would expect to see that 0.71 come down to, you know, more like sort of 0.6-ish.
Again, as David said, you know, the last couple of years haven't been like that and, you know, that past doesn't necessarily go to the future, I guess. As I said earlier, I think by the end of the year we'll be seeing outlet numbers down in the, you know, the sort of 360s on average for 2023, and that will be the rate that we go into next year at. Again, you can read that rate through then on the outlet numbers going forward.
Emily, just to add on outlets, you know, if you look over the last two or three years, and again, we've talked about this before, you know, we've done a lot in terms of looking to generate additional outlets from our own portfolio. Putting more Barratt sites onto David Wilson sites and vice versa. That was something that we really started the process on in the face of COVID. We weren't in the land market. We knew that we needed to generate more outlets. We've also, with other house builders, done some more swaps. I mean, it's not big numbers, but if you swap 15 sites, it has a significant impact in terms of your outlets and your outlet growth.
I think the combination of those things, has put us in a very good position in terms of outlet numbers, at least as far as FY 2023 and FY 2024 is concerned. Therefore, what we're now really talking about is, as we inevitably go back into the land market at some point, that will be much more about generating outlets for FY 2025 and beyond.
That's really helpful. Thanks so much, guys.
The next question comes from Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. Please go ahead. It seems he has stepped away. We'll now take the next question from John Fraser-Andrews from HSBC.
Thank you, good morning, gents. Two for me, please. The first one is around cost reductions that you're having with the hiring freeze. Just wondering if the pickup in sales rate now draws something under any additional cost reductions that you may have made if it hadn't picked up. Are you now sort of back in preparing for the volume recovery and growth? That's the first one. The second is on build cost inflation. Steven, thank you for that color you gave about the reductions in timber and steel. I think you were saying that the cementitious products, there was some growth, sort of sequential increase in pricing this year.
Net-net on materials, are they sort of sequentially flattish, I guess I would expect if there aren't any further increases to that inflation in materials to sort of grind away to nothing. Then on labor, I think you said that there had been some reductions at the early stage, Perhaps you could provide a bit more detail, sort of around that and whether you expect that to increase to other trades going forward. Thank you.
John, hi. Good morning. Steven will obviously pick up in terms of the build cost side of things. I mean, if I just pick up in terms of cost more generally. With regard to our approach in light of the drop off of sales in the final quarter, I think the first thing is that we, you know, we had a, you know, a similar approach at the time of the referendum. I know it's a long time ago, but our share price dropped 50% in three days. We put in place a recruitment freeze. We came out of the land market. Likewise, in 2020, COVID hit. Nobody had seen it before. We put in place a recruitment freeze. We came out of the land market.
The reality is, I think it's our tried and tested model. We have really mainly been focused on driving revenues. That's the main point of discussion in our executive. It's the main point of discussion for our management teams. We recognize that there is a need to review and manage the cost base, but the reality is the recruitment freeze is a very effective way of dealing with that. You know, we would normally see relatively high levels of employee turnover, and the recruitment freeze has been in situ now for around six months, and we've seen a drop-off in headcount accordingly. I think when the market has moved from 0.3 to say 0.7, we see that as being hugely encouraging, but we remain absolutely on the front foot in terms of driving revenues.
You know, we want more private sales, we want more private rental, and we have a recruitment freeze still in place. Again, we've said before, that doesn't mean we're not doing any recruitment, because clearly there's circumstances that arise where you have to recruit, but it does mean that our recruitment is very limited and our headcount has reduced over the period. I think we're down on total heads by about 350 heads from a starting position of about 7,500. I think that's a fairly effective management of the headcount, and we'll just continue to operate in that way. Out of the land market, a partial recruitment freeze, but primarily focus on driving revenue. Steven?
Thanks, Mike. Mike, on the two elements of build cost that you queried. Certainly, the amount of spend and the volume and amount of reduction we've seen on timber-based products, steel, and actually there's some price reduction coming through on plastic UPVC far outweighs the cost increases we've been seeing on cement-based products. We'll clearly be giving an update on progress in July. At this stage, our procurement teams are working closely with our supply chain partners to renegotiate terms. In terms of labor, the largest increases we've seen in the last few years has tended to be on groundworkers and bricklayer trades rather than the sort of later on trades such as joinery and plumbing and electrical.
That's where we're seeing the greatest sort of decrease at the moment is the early stage trades, i.e. the groundworkers and bricklayers. I don't expect there'll be substantial reductions flowing through on other finishing type trades at this stage. Again, as I say, we'll give a better and a fuller update in July when things become more clearer, as I say, it's an evolving position.
Thank you very much for those answers.
Not at all. Thank you.
We will now take the next question from Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to ask a little bit sort of on margins, if you could help us out sort of, I don't know how best to sort of phrase this, but, you know, what kind of your run rate contribution margin is sort of on the reservations that you're booking. I don't know you remember, I think printing 33 in H1, you obviously guided that's gonna come off, but if you could just give us a sense, is that still above the 30 mark or below or whatever, sort of as we start thinking about sort of a run rate into FY 2024?
Perhaps related to that on land acquisitions, appreciate that you need sort of sales rate stability, but how do you see the sort of land stack coming in when obviously costs will have cumulatively inflated? I think you're talking 15%. Selling prices obviously haven't moved a great deal. You know, do you think you can actually procure land at a sort of, I think, hurdle rate is 23% plus? Thank you.
Gregor, hi. Gregor, if I just pick up in terms of land acquisitions, and then Mike will pick up in terms of margins. I mean, on land acquisitions, the short answer is we see nothing in the backdrop that would say that we should be altering our margins in terms of the minimum hurdle rates. Bear in mind that, you know, we have approved sites, albeit it's been in very limited number, and those sites are being approved on the basis of a 23% gross margin and a 25% return on capital employed. I mean, that's consistent with our long-term hurdles. We don't see anything that would lead us to adjust that position.
We also recognize that we have seen this kind of artificial extension of our land banks, and that's probably the first factor that allowed us to step away from the market in the first place. If we start to see prolonged rates of sale at 0.7, clearly we will have a need to go back into the market in a more meaningful way. We just keep that under review. If I pass over to Mike.
Greg, we're not sort of guiding for FY 2024 on margins at this stage. It's been in a trading update. We'll come back with more guidance at year-end. If I sort of help you think about the framework that, you know, may be useful to look at it in terms of what we've said. From a pricing perspective, we've obviously seen private ASPs down about 4% on that, you know, sort of much like for like basis that I was talking about earlier. We're finding build cost inflation at around 5%. Your volumes next year are obviously gonna be quite a bit lower than this year. There will be some de-gearing dropping through the P&L there as well.
If you look at consensus as a, you know, sort of proxy, I think we're seeing 350-400 basis points off the gross margin into next year from this year. The consensus operating margin is currently sitting around 12%. You know, I think that will help you sort of piece together the different moving parts. As we come through year-end in the summer, we'll be back with more sort of firm guidance for 2024.
Thank you.
Thanks, Greg.
We will now take the next question from Jon Bell from Deutsche Bank.
Morning, gents. I think I've got two. The first one is just on recent part exchange usage. Maybe you could give us a percentage figure there. The second one really is a follow-up to Aynsley's question on weekend Help to Buy chatter. Just to clarify, when you think about planning the business over the maybe next two or three years, is your working assumption that Help to Buy won't come back? If it does, you'll revisit that planning process or is there anything you can put in place today that would enable you to capitalize on that move, should it transpire? Thank you.
John. Hi. First of all, as good morning, John. I mean, I'm just gonna pick up both of these, okay? Just to say in terms of part exchange, I mean, we've seen an increase in part exchange participation. That's, I, you know, I think was an inevitable by-product of what we saw in terms of the tapering of part exchange. As you recall, the tapering of part exchange took the second-time buyer out of the part exchange scheme. Therefore, for some period of time, we've seen some tick-up in terms of part exchange. I think as the backdrop has become more difficult for people moving house generally post the Mini Budget, we've seen further tick-ups in terms of part exchange. Historically, we've probably seen part exchange peak at 20% plus of transactions.
Just now I say, you know, we're around about 10%. I mean something in that order. Part exchange for us is a fantastic sales tool. You know, it allows us to intervene in the second-hand market. The proposition of, you know, you buy our house and we'll buy yours is a very powerful proposition for a lot of customers. You know, I think we'll continue to see that used. I mean, Mike can answer anything in terms of our part exchange balance sheet position, but I would say in overall terms, it's modest, you know, clearly relative to the balance sheet size. In terms of Help to Buy, I mean, we touched on this earlier.
I think the very important thing is that we mustn't be distracted by the sort of chatter in the background. We knew that Help to Buy was going to expire. We can see that there is a big affordability challenge for first-time buyers. We can see that there is, you know, an intergenerational imbalance in terms of the haves and the have-nots. That then gives it a political momentum in terms of recognizing that if the younger potential homebuyer is not able to get onto the property ladder, then that becomes a much more important political issue. I think you're seeing that play out, and we saw that play out over the weekend.
The reality is that we approach the expiry of Help to Buy saying that we need to have a broad product range. We have a broad product range. If you look at David Wilson Homes and Barratt London, there is a broad range of product offerings for our potential customers, and that is very, very important. I don't think we should be trying to position ourselves as, you know, the housebuilder for the first-time buyer, or we should be trying to position ourselves as the housebuilder for the second-time or third-time mover. We want to appeal to the whole market and ensure that we have that balanced product range, and we'll continue to operate on that basis.
Okay. Thank you.
We will take the next question from Ami Galla from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. A couple of questions from me as well. The first one was on planning. If you've seen any material improvements sequentially in the pace of getting planning approvals at all? Again, from your Gladman business, any signs of activity coming back quite significantly in the land market? A follow-up from that sort of commentary around the expectations building up on Help to Buy coming back. Do you think that kind of tightens the land market further as we kind of think about the next six to eight months? I mean, any commentary around how do you think about that land market-
Shifting as we kind of think about demand picking up in spring and potentially more incentives coming from the government. The last one just on trading, are there any regional differences that you see in the year-to-date trading so far?
Amy, that covers quite a few bases there. I think if, maybe on trading, if Steven can just pick up in terms of just a view on regional trading. if I just work on the other three, I mean Look, I think that news flow around potential demand-side stimulus is clearly going to create a more positive sentiment for the market. I'm not sure that that creates a more positive sentiment that means people are gonna go out and commit tens or hundreds of millions of GBP to land acquisition. I don't see it as being something that's a game changer, i.e., the chatter.
Clearly the delivery of Help to Buy or equivalent will make a difference to the rates of sales, but the chatter won't make any difference to the rates of sale, therefore I don't think it's doing much for the land market or land transactions. In terms of Gladman, and Claire, as you know, an acquisition that we made in January 2022, we said at the time there was a number of reasons for the acquisition, but Gladman have a large portfolio. They have a lot of expertise in terms of land and planning, and are able to help the wider group. They had a portfolio of around 350 sites. That portfolio will come forward and come through planning over the next few years.
I think in terms of land sales, Gladman have probably seen a similar impact to the rest of the market, where there has been a slowdown in relation to transactions. That just reflects our view in terms of the land market, which I think is similar to a lot of other companies' view, is that there isn't sufficient stability to be investing substantial amounts of money into the land market. In terms of planning, I would say that particularly over the last four months, that planning has gone backwards substantially. We've seen around 50 local authorities effectively drop their existing plans. You've got a few different things happening, but you know, in brief, local authority elections will always tend to slow down planning, and we're clearly right on top of the local authority elections, that will be out of the way.
Secondly, the government's position and the consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework has been seen by many local authorities as a license to just not do anything from a planning perspective. In some ways, the planning backdrop is poorer. I would say for the industry generally, there is probably less stuff being pushed at planning because there are less sites coming through the system given the change in the market since September 2022. Steven, just on trading.
Yeah, not wanting anything. In terms of trading with other regions, I think you'd say that the market is pretty consistent outside London. Across all regions, we're getting a consistent sales performance, which is reflected in the figures you've seen, we're publishing today. No specific areas you'd pull out in terms of really good performance or not so good performance. In terms of the London market, Claire, that's most of our challenging market at the moment. Having said that, we're starting to see a return in London as the overseas investors' greatest sale levels are coming through from overseas, particularly from Hong Kong at the moment. The London market is at long last starting to see some improvement. As I say, generally a consistent market throughout the U.K.
Thanks, Steven. Thanks, Ami.
As there are no further questions... wait, sorry. We now have another question from Sam Cullen from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning, everyone. Just coming back really on following up on David and your last answer on planning. Clearly kind of take your points about the new kind of balance, if you like, between kind of supply and demand in the planning system. How do you balance the risks of kind of overextending yourself on land and planning now versus kind of building resilience in the supply chain, as it were, if you kind of look forward a couple of years in a market that perhaps stabilizes and perhaps we walk into a coalition government with some yellow seats around the Home Counties where planning is gonna be probably even more of a thorny issue than it is now. Do you need to kind of get ahead of potential changes that might come down the track?
Well, look, clearly we see that there are risks in terms of planning, if you look at it in the round. I think you need to put it in context, Sam, that first of all, we have demonstrated, I mean, clearly factually, we've demonstrated that we can deliver sites very successfully. I think if you look at our portfolio of outlets from where we were in 2019 to where we are today, I think we've performed fantastically well. That's about sourcing the land, getting it through planning and delivering. You know, Mike talked this morning about, you know, 350, 360 sites going out through FY 2024. Look at where we were in 2019, and I think that shows our performance has been very, very strong.
That's come from two main areas. One, we've hugely increased our strategic portfolio over the last few years, and we, you know, we have a very, very good strategic portfolio, which 10 or 15 years ago, we wouldn't have been able to say that. We can draw down, given time, we can draw down from our strategic portfolio. Then we've always been a big operator in terms of the operational land market. We still have sites coming through from commitments we made in 2021 and 2022. We have sites that will come through in terms of planning. We're comfortable we can manage this through, but we do recognize that there are risks.
You know, it's not long ago, as we touched on earlier, Sam Cullen, that the whole industry was selling pretty much at 0.3. I think it's quite right in that situation that you pause and you look at how the market's going to develop. We look at it and talk about it on a regular basis in terms of the way that the market's developing.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Sam.
That will conclude today's question and answer session. I would like to hand the call back over to Mr. Thomas for any closing remarks.
Well, thank you very much. Thanks everyone for dialing in, and thank you for the questions, and we'll talk again soon. Thank you.
Thank you. That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. Ladies and gentlemen, you may now disconnect.