Morning, everybody. Thank you for making it on time. Thank you for coming. Welcome to MJ Gleeson's Interim Results for the six months to 31st of December 2024. You know the format. I'll give you a quick summary. Stefan will then run you through the numbers in a bit of detail, and I'll come back and talk a bit about operations and strategy and leave plenty of time for your questions. Without further ado, I would characterize the six months as a solid performance in an unexciting market. No surprises, no surprises there. Perhaps more importantly, I am really pleased with the progress we're making on the efforts that we're putting in still to refine and improve the operations in both parts of the business. We'll talk a little bit about that over the next half hour or so.
As I say, pleased that our home sales, number of homes were up at 801. Our revenues were up a bit. Our net reservation rate was up some 13% on the comparable period in the prior year, although 0.44%, still in that market, nothing to write home about, I have to say. The margin continues to be under pressure. The gross margin was 20.6%. That's disappointing but not disastrous. We can talk about the reasons for that. You know, you're well aware of what they are. Very importantly, pleased that we retained our customer recommend score in every region at five-star. That's an important focus for us right now as we transition to the HBS new scoring system. Really importantly, made good progress on our site openings plan. We'll talk about that.
That's obviously critical for the achievement of our exciting growth ambitions. Still continuing to see good, strong interest in our nascent partnerships business. Over in Gleeson Land, as you're aware, we didn't complete any sales in the first half. We did make good progress on some very promising opportunities, which should come to fruition in the second half. That gives us confidence for our forecast there. A great January, three planning consents achieved in January, which is excellent. It's really good that we're starting to see the benefit in the numbers of the restructure, Guy, put in place and particularly seeing some good success in the land market. Overall, I'm happy that the business is very well positioned for a market recovery.
Turning then just to the period since the holidays, it's fair to say, I mean, the macro backdrop has not been encouraging. I don't think any of us expected it to be much different. We have come into the year. We had that early turmoil in the bond markets, and that was interpreted by various sections of the press as, you know, carnage in the mortgage markets. We are seeing business and consumer confidence surveys turning down, still looking very, very cautious. We kind of anticipated that that would be the case. I don't think anybody thought we were gonna come back and see January kick off and off to the races. We have been working very hard and very proactively to look at, we know the customers are out there, but they need incentivization.
We, and there's no substitute for a real kind of granular focus. It's hard work. It's site by site. It's week by week. It's a real senior focus. We're pushing prices where we can but adjusting incentives where we need to, to make sure we're really on the front foot and putting our best foot forward. So far, it would appear that we're making our own luck. We've got a strong sales rate of 0.77% through January, which we're very pleased with. Just to reassure you, that doesn't mean we're giving the homes away. Our average incentives in January have been at 4.3%, which compares with 3.5% year to date. As I say, I think it's really that hard work and that targeting of the incentives, more than just dumping incentives, as it were.
We'll see if that holds. At that point, I will hand you over to Stefan to run you through the numbers.
Thank you, Graham. Good morning, everyone. We were very pleased with the first half performance in a market that remained pretty subdued up to the new year. Despite those market conditions, first half results were in line with our expectations, and we grew revenue by 4.2% to just under GBP 158 million. I will take you through the divisional operating performance on the next few slides to highlight a few points. Gleeson Homes' operating profit was 10.8% lower at GBP 9.1 million for the half year. As expected, Gleeson Land did not complete any sales in the first half and reports a loss as a result, small loss. Group overheads were slightly lower, and interest costs were also slightly lower, reflecting lower average borrowings during the first half compared to the first half last year.
As a result of that first half loss in Gleeson Land and lower operating margin in Gleeson Homes, the group's profit before tax was 50% lower at GBP 3.6 million. Now, turning to divisional results, in Gleeson Homes, volumes grew by 4.2% to 801 homes completed, with a lower proportion coming from multi-unit sales, 95 units from multi-unit sales. Pleasingly, average selling prices were up 4.8%. That was driven by continued increases in underlying selling prices of 0.8% and 4% coming from mix. That was a lower proportion from multi-unit completions and, a slightly richer house-type mix. On open market sales, we continued to increase gross prices by 2.3%, but incentives were also higher. Extras were a little lower. Those higher incentives, which were at, currently at about 4.3%, meant that underlying house prices were up only 0.8%.
Gross profit in Gleeson Homes was GBP 2.8 million lower at GBP 32.1 million. That includes a small GBP 200,000 profit on the sale of some surplus land in East Yorkshire. You'll remember, a few years ago, we, I would occasionally have a land sale. Like most house builders, if we have a surplus site a bit too much in one region, we might sell a piece of land. Those gross margins that Graham mentioned, 20.6% in the first half, that was 390 basis points lower than the prior year. That reflects this increase in incentives. We did see some build cost inflation over the period of 0.9%, almost 1%. We are still selling on some sites that we'd hoped to close a little earlier. We have extended prelim costs. Of course, we are still taking orders on multi-unit sales, which attract a higher discount than open market sales.
As a result, margin was lower. We do expect, as we had flagged before, we said that margins in the first half would be at the low point. We do expect margins in the second half to recover, to continue, to increase, and then beyond that in future years to continue increasing. Overhead costs were 6.9% lower at GBP 23.1 million. That reflects reduced headcount. Our headcount was 5.5% lower at the end of December than December the year before. We had some other lower costs, particularly marketing costs. For the first half, Gleeson Homes delivered operating profit of GBP 9.1 million and an operating margin of 5.8%. Some of the detail I have just given you, though, is not on this slide. If you look in the appendices, the final pages, the appendices, you will see some of that detail and a bit more there.
Now, looking at Gleeson Homes' forward order book, we grew that by 6.8%, grew from the start of the year to 597 forward orders. That was supported by another partnership agreement we entered into in the first half and some further multi-unit orders. We do aim to rebuild the forward order book by the end of this financial year, and we're particularly encouraged by the strong start we've seen in the first four weeks of this year. Now, turning to Gleeson Land, we didn't expect Gleeson Land to complete a sale in the first half. We flagged that back in September, but we are currently marketing eight sites, and we have terms agreed on a number of those sites already. We do expect those to land somewhere between four and eight completions to land in the second half.
They are all likely to be in the back end of the year, all in Q4, many of them likely to be in June. The division incurred, without any sales in the first half, just overhead costs. We had a small increase in provisions. As a result, I report a loss of GBP 1.9 million. Now, turning to the balance sheet, inventories increased GBP 12.4 million to GBP 370.5 million, with roughly 70% of that increase being in Gleeson Homes. Gleeson Homes purchased 10 sites in the first half, had a good first half with just under 1,000 plots on those 10 sites. The cost of those purchases was higher than normal. It was GBP 23.5 million for those 10 sites.
Now, two of these sites were a little larger than usual and more expensive than usual, but they reflect the quite oven-ready nature of those two sites, much more so than our typical site. That's quite unusual. We do not expect that to repeat. We expect the average to fall back down to more normal levels. As a result, the average land WIP in the balance sheet, per plot acquired, was higher at GBP 14,600, still significantly less than 10% of expected selling prices on those sites. Build WIP reduced by GBP 9.2 million. That reflects us building on fewer sites than we were building on in December last year. Again, we flagged that was likely to happen in the first half. We are building on 75 sites compared to 79 at the end of December 2023. Gleeson Land increased its WIP by GBP 3.6 million overall.
That came because the portfolio is now starting to grow again. We had a portfolio of 73 sites compared to 71 a year ago. We also did not have any sales in the first half, so there was no accumulated build WIP or WIP release to the P&L. That remained on the balance sheet. We continued to invest in progressing the portfolio through the sites that continued to incur some costs and capitalize those costs. As usual, I would highlight Gleeson Homes' land creditors, which are GBP 12.8 million, about 11% of land assets, roughly the same proportion as a year ago. As a reminder, forgive me, we typically pay for our land. Gleeson Homes typically pays for its land when it buys it. It does not tranche its payments and have lots of deferred payments on high creditors.
We ended the year with net debt of, the half year with net debt of GBP 18.1 million, slightly lower than a year ago. We continue to have a strong and healthy balance sheet. Looking at operating cash flow, operating cash outflow for the year was GBP 22.2 million, higher than first half last year. There are some interesting things going on there. Gleeson Land had an operating cash outflow of GBP 6 million compared to the operating inflow it had the previous half year of GBP 9 million. That was an unusually high inflow in the first half of last year. That is a swing of GBP 15 million, which is larger than the difference in group operating cash outflow. Gleeson Homes outflow was, operating cash outflow was GBP 14 million.
It is quite typical as a seasonal outflow in the first half of the year and was lower than GBP 20 million in the first half of the previous year. Interest, tax, and capital expenditure were broadly in line with our expectations. As a result, we were very pleased to see slightly lower net debt at the end of the period of GBP 18.1 million. Now, despite our lower earnings, we do remain quite confident of our full-year outlook. In line with the group's capital allocation policy, we will be declaring an interim dividend of GBP 4 per share, unchanged on our prior interim, prior year, half-year interim dividend of GBP 4. That dividend will be paid on the 4th of April to shareholders on the register the 7th of March.
We are reiterating once again our dividend cover policy, of earnings covering dividends, full-year earnings covering dividends between three times and five times. Final dividend for the full year will be determined by earnings this year and will remain within that three times to five times cover policy and very likely towards the lower end of that range. Thank you. I will hand you back to Graham.
Very good. Thanks, Stefan. Turning to kind of operations and strategy, looking at first at Gleeson Homes, quick look at the market environment. As I said, it's still out there, still lacking conviction, still cautious, but there are buyers there. As I say, we're really pleased with our sales rate in January. 0.77% is good. We will strive to keep that going.
It's far too early, way too early to say, "Right, war's over." You know, we're off, we're off to the races. We need to see that, we need to see that sort of rate of sale over, over kind of three, four months before we, before we start saying anything like that. It is a good start to the new year, and we're very pleased with it. Obviously, last week's base rate cut will help. Although it was again interesting to see significant sections of the media prefer to concentrate on kind of the technical challenges behind, behind the rate cut and, you know, the low GDP expectations and inflation curves and what have you. Of course, that isn't what gets talked about in the pub.
What we want is that we want the strong, the stronger headlines, and that is what will start to build the confidence. Despite what you read in the papers, actually, the mortgage markets are pretty good. There is good availability. The banks are pretty competitive with each other, and mortgage rates are stable. It is not a bad time to be looking for a mortgage. We are finding that overall, selling prices are steady. We are still pushing prices at every release. Some of those are sticking, some are not. As I said earlier, it is really important that we are keeping right in tune with that, and getting the pricing right, getting the incentives level exactly right. Build cost inflation was very modest in the first half, about 1%.
The big question everybody's pondering is what happens over the next six months with the NI increases kicking in. We're estimating 2-3% over that period. Really, I'm guessing that, as always with this industry and in any industry, the real impact of those NI increases on our supply chain will depend on the strength of the wider market as it always does and what's the general demand. Planning is improving, slowly. I would say we are starting to see the benefits of the new NPPF. It is interesting. Different effects in the two businesses. Where we're seeing that benefit is more in the supply-constrained, you know, very tightly constrained authorities in the south. We will talk a bit about that in Guy's business, in Mark's business, in homes.
This is not so much about, well, it may be a north-south thing, but certainly for the homes business, where we're more concerned about actually getting an implementable consent and less about the actual principle of establishing the principle of development, there is still a really turgid process just to actually get the piece of paper, to get to site, to get the Section 106 signed. We're still seeing that shortage in resources in planning departments, which is going to take longer to solve. I think overall, we would say, you know, a decent school report for the Government for the first six months. They're doing the right things. Just a reminder, our unique proposition in the market, Gleeson Homes remain highly affordable.
Gleeson Homes' typical customers have continued to see sort of strong increase in their disposable income. In April, we get another increase in the National Living Wage, up by 6.7%. That is on the back of successive 10% increases. From April, our benchmark couple on the National Living Wage can afford to buy a home at GBP 226,000 against our average selling price of GBP 194,000. They can buy any of our three beds. The average Gleeson customer spends just 22% of their take-home pay on their mortgage compared to 36% nationally. Of course, the gap with the rental market continues to open out, as the rental market soars away with what seems to be private landlords deserting that market.
Institutional PRS obviously can't build fast enough to close that gap. Just looking at our operational capability, and I talked about the work that we're doing to continue for continuous improvement in the business. The restructure and standardization that we put in place some 18 months ago now, that's settled very well. I talked earlier about the kind of work that we're doing, the granular work that we're doing on our demand side. Also, we're focusing very hard on our own operations. It's really important that we continue to find those improvements in build, in the pace, the quality, and the cost control. We're also looking hard at our commercial controls.
This is really about pushing home those benefits of standardization, real compliance with process, and finding those small incremental improvements, which will in turn make us more confident in our control, make sure the whole operation is more reliable, such that as we stride towards that growth, we can do so in a really controlled and confident manner. Great to see the progress that we're making in that regard. As I mentioned earlier, it's an important year for us, 2025, on the quality of our customer experience because we are kind of joining the rest of the industry and publishing our results under the HBF survey. We previously used in-house, which is no less rigorous. It's absolutely independent, so our five-star is absolutely real.
We have to move to the new survey under the New Homes Quality Board. That means we're transitioning. We need our team to ensure they're chasing up the HBF surveys, etc., etc. It is a big year for us. Of course, that new survey is more comprehensive, more granular. I think the whole industry is kind of focusing hard on that to make sure that we're in a good place. We announce our first results under that for calendar 2025 in March 2026, I think, Mark. Gleeson Partnerships is making really good progress. You know that we've signed two deals. I think one at the end of last year, one at the beginning of this financial year. I was on both of those sites recently in Yorkshire.
Really exciting to see the progress and the pace that we're making on those sites. Very excited for our first completions, which will be in the summer. We're targeting, as you know, one partnership deal in every one of our regions by the end of the year, and we've got some great deals under negotiation. You're also aware that we're in a bit of a hiatus with the housing associations at the moment, who are all sitting on their hands. They're keen to trade, but they're unable to commit because of the delay to the new funding settlement. The chancellor, we had all hoped for something back in the autumn. Then it was pushed to the March spending review. That spending review has now been pushed to the summer.
Right now, the housing associations are not out to play, which is, they're keen to negotiate but can't commit. That has the knock-on effect that there's no urgency. There's no tension in the market. The private rented players have got the playground to themselves, and they can kind of saunter around and deal when they deal when they choose. It's a bit soggy in the partnerships markets at the moment. That may frustrate us by a few months. It's not going to impact our forecast, certainly for the current year, nor really for next year, given the, you know, the time these deals take to come to fruition. It may delay us by a few months, but we're still going for it, that one in, one in every, in every region.
Just to remind you, a good steady state place for our partnerships operation will be about 20% of our homes business. We're absolutely committed to the model, but what it represents is a market risk diversification for us and a leveraging of our operating capital to enhance the growth in our core open market business. We're making good progress on opening our build and sale sites. This is really the key to our growth, the growth in our outlets. We were pleased to open eight build sites in the first half and 11 new sales outlets in that six months. The biggest challenge to that, if you like, we're a bit behind where we wanted. We have made good progress. We're a bit behind where we wanted to be.
That comes down to the P word, planning. As I say, grinding out those implementable consents is hard work. We are pleased with the progress we're making. We're making good progress, and we're not letting up the pressure at all. You can see the trajectory on the bar chart, the severe kind of drop post-Trussonomics and that market weakness, and then the budgeted and planned increase coming out this year and in the following years. Just to be clear, the bar chart does slightly mask what's going on because in fiscal year 2025, you can see the 65 outlets there. That number should be lower in a norm that contains a number of kind of tail-end sites with just a handful of units and pretty low choice left for our customers.
Those sites in a normal market would have sold out sooner. The point I'm making is the trough would be more marked, would be deeper. The 65 is slightly overstated. Whereas the 67 sites, the vast majority for 67 sites for fiscal year 2026, the vast majority of those are newer sites with a full range, with a new product and, crucially, a full range of choice for our customers. Very importantly, that's the trajectory for the site openings, and we have the land to support that. Our land, we're continuing to buy. Land market's been tougher, I would say, over the past calendar year. It's definitely, as people have returned to the market, but we're doing well. We have a great pipeline of some kind of 19,000 plots on 174 sites. The land we need is in our control.
As Stefan said, the average cost per plot in that, in there is well below 10% of our average selling price. We're in a really good place with our land bank. You've seen this, you've seen this before. As I say, crucial to achieving those growth ambitions is getting the sites open. The arithmetic shows you that if we can get up to that important 100 sites, 100 outlets, then even a relatively modest sales rate of 0.6 per site per week gets us to our medium-term target. Turning then to Gleeson Land, the disappointing, I would say, not to have made any sales in the first half, but absolutely not disastrous.
We did make good progress on a number of deals we're bringing through and very exciting to have achieved three consents in January. One more than we were expecting, actually. We got an earlier one than we thought. That gives us good confidence that we will complete between four and eight sales in the second half. That underpins our confidence for our forecasts for the full year. We are starting to see the, as I said, the benefits of the new NPPF. Those three consents, two were at committee, one came through by appeal. The two that came through from committee were both in authorities that basically looked at the NPPF as it was coming through and said, "Hang on a minute.
We are going to need some numbers in order to stay in control of our own local plan process. They encouraged us to bring forward those applications. Just underlines, I think, that Gleeson Land is really well placed to benefit from those positive changes. Where was I going? Was there one other thing I wanted to say? No, I think we're good. Turning then to the strategy and the benefits, as I said, really pleased that we're starting to see the benefits of the excellent strategy changes that guys made. This was all, if you recall, all about the regionalization of our land team. We now have our land in three regions, boots on the ground.
That is really important because it means that they are there understanding the local authorities well and, crucially, making the network and the contacts within their regions. They are strongly supported by our excellent, our unique data research and analysis capability, which really empowers them in terms of identifying the sites and making the proposals. The whole is underpinned by our fantastic planning and technical teams, which continue to be based centrally in Fleet. The effect of that is that we are seeing a wider range of opportunities, so more opportunities coming across our desk. We are still maintaining our discipline. We still only bid on maybe one in 10 of the opportunities that we actually see.
We're also winning a higher proportion of the bids that we're making, up to about a third of the bids we've been successful on in this period. I put that down to really the quality of our proposals and our growing reputation and high levels of customer satisfaction. That's really positive. Just to reassure you, we're absolutely not winning those bids by dropping our hurdles. We're maintaining our disciplines, maintaining our hurdle rates. It's absolutely not about reducing our profitability or increasing our risk profile. You can see, as a result of that, we expect to increase by net five sites in our portfolio in the current year and then a further 10 net sites next year.
In summary, we are seeing the early signs of a bright start to the second half, which is underpinning our confidence for the full year, but still lots to do, of course. Gleeson Homes, well positioned for growth. We have the land, we have the products, we have the process, and we have the people. Our site openings are accelerating, as planned. We expect our gross margins to start to improve, to start to climb back from the second half as lower margin sites complete. We anticipate that build cost inflation will stay reasonably restrained. In Gleeson Land, really pleased that we are seeing that strategy start to deliver. We expect between four and eight sales in the second half. We anticipate quite aggressive growth in the portfolio, and we are well placed to benefit from the new NPPF.
Overall, I would characterize us as very strongly positioned for that market recovery. At that point, we'll be pleased to take your questions. Very good. Aynsley, straight off the blocks.
Thanks very much. Aynsley Lammin from Investec. Just two from me, please. Just interested to hear a bit more maybe on the recent trade-in, kind of how much of that do you think the efforts you've been making around the business and sales, or is it, you know, just the market's actually a bit better than what people had feared? Secondly, on the Gleeson Land business, obviously, the WIM rate and the kind of bid rate has increased quite a lot. Just interested to hear, you know, the likelihood that that also translates to more planning permission over the, you know, is that an indication of the pipeline, I guess, that's coming through in that business?
Just generally in the land business, interested to hear any color on, you know, house builders' interest, are they increasing hurdle rates just given maybe view on the recovery is a bit tempered? Interested in that. Thanks.
Okay. I might ask Guy to give you a bit more color on land in one second. To sales in January, it's interesting. We obviously get to see the HBF levels, so we get a bit of insight into the market. I think, as I said, I do think we're making our own luck. A jump of 45% over our performance in the same period last year is significant. I think that is to do with some of the longer-term efforts we've been putting in and making sure our sales teams are right on it.
We've been doing a lot of training, and that takes time over many months. A lot of work with our sales teams, but then also no substitute, as I say, for sleeves rolled up, lot of early morning calls. Mark's on them, Stefan's on them, I'm on them, the Sales Director's on them, and he is also doing the same with the Sales Directors. This is a market where you work hard, and that's not a complaint. We are making sure that every site, every plot is appropriately positioned and targeted, with, you know, a balance between price and incentives and absolutely presentation, etc. Hard work, really. Whether it's a wider market upturn, we'll hear from others today and over the next few days, and we'll obviously see more into the spring.
I would love it to be a wider market upturn, but we will see. Gleeson Land, as I say, I'll get, I'll ask Guy to comment on that. I would stress that this is really about the, I think, I think the WIN rate, this is a positive circle, if you like. We are building our reputation. Undoubtedly, the combination of the people that Guy's hired, the fact that we have a regionalized land business, the fact that we have this superb data research capability, which is, it's pretty, it's pretty damn impressive. Our clients see that as well. The service that they receive, we've had some excellent customer feedback. The market, it's quite a tight market. That gets talked about, and our reputation's growing.
Guy, I do not know if you want to add to that.
Yeah, no, I think all those things are absolutely pertinent. I think it is a reflection of the fact that, as part of the strategy, we have, as Graham says, regionalized, invested in our land team, invested in our research and analytics team. If I take the land team as an example, though, that additional resource landed sort of January and March, so just, you know, sort of nine to 12 months ago. Clearly, the first three or four months is getting used to the new operating structure, getting out to the market.
I've seen, and what we've definitely seen in the last six months is the fruits of that labor coming through with regard to the number of bids that we're submitting because we've got those boots on the ground and better engagement with the market and the success rate increasing as a result of all the points that Graham's made. I see that as really encouraging. I think I'll let Stefan talk about how that translates to our projections as a business. I think the other point you asked about was about the land market and demand. I'll touch on that briefly. I've been encouraged. We've got a number of sites, as Graham has alluded to, that are either in legals or out to market at the moment or where we've actually just received offers.
I'm encouraged at the demand that we're seeing. If I take an example of that, we had offers in on a site last week, which I would say was in a secondary location rather than a prime location. I think the demand for prime location land has been strong consistently, even though it's been a more challenging environment over the last 18 months. We've definitely seen in that secondary market a tailing off and house builders being a lot more selective about where they choose to invest in land. On the site that we took to market and had offers in, I was encouraged by, a, the number of bids that we had in, and secondly, the value ascribed to them as well. Now, clearly, that's early days. We need to now go through a process, get into legals, and transact.
Certainly, as a sign of the market, that seems to be stronger than it was six months ago.
Thanks, Guy. Greg, sorry.
Yeah. Hi, good morning. Did you just talk a bit about customer demographics through the first half and whether you've seen them change in the new year? Is that just first-time buyers coming back to market post-Christmas? And then secondly, on the Gleeson Land, could you talk about the consistency of that bid and win rate and where you think it could get to? Thanks.
We are seeing custom, I don't know whether we've got the actual January analysis or not. We are seeing a gradual increase in first-time buyers. They're back up over 50% of our buyers. Do we have the January analysis? We may not yet.
I've seen the numbers, but they're such a small sample.
You can't really take much from it. It's kind of consistent with 55%. You remember that we were 80% a few years ago. We had an obsession with first-time buyers many years ago. We did decide to widen our offering so that customers who weren't young, low-income first-time buyers were also able to buy our homes. We saw the proportion of buyers fall to still a high-ish proportion, but 45%. It's 55% over the last six months. It's recovered a little bit. What's really interesting is the demographics now is quite spread. Twenty percent of our customers are, I'm going to say, old. That's over 55 years old. Twenty percent are now at that demographic. We still have, you know, we had a, we've got a customer, a forklift truck driver. He's 18 years old.
He bought a home in East Yorkshire, in the first half. We have a customer, he's 87 years old.
I'm trying to persuade Stefan to buy one. That will push the average age up a little bit. Just coming to your second question around the, I mean, I do anticipate that the levels of bids and, I suppose, the level of opportunities depends on the wider market. We are seeing a good level at the moment. This is in Gleeson Land. I do expect that our bid rate will push up because, as I say, because of the restructure, because of the way that we're now working. I think our win rate will hold. That is because it is underpinned by the, it really is the quality of what we're doing. I can't stress enough, we're not reducing our hurdles.
It isn't worth us putting in the time, effort, and premium to make a small amount of profit. We are turning away. We see some eye-watering bids out there at the moment. Really interestingly, we had one come back to us. Shant mention locations or names, but one of our peers had just put in an eye-watering bid, and they clearly got cold feet. That one has come back to us. Again, that's reputation. They came back and they said, "Well, Gleeson Land do what they say, do what they say." We stick to our levels. We will not get pulled up into the higher bid levels. If we make our bid, we deliver. That is what the market is starting to see. Thanks. Charlie.
Yeah, Charlie Campbell at Stifel.
Just a couple, actually. Just on the land, you've given us, I think, two years of forecasts. I have sort of heard, I think, an old number of sort of a medium-term target of getting up to 100 sites. Is that still the sort of ambition, or could it grow further given the kind of momentum? The second question was just to try and help us, I suppose, think through the evolution of gross margin in homes. Just wondering what sort of proportion of the drop in margin came from the extended prelims and how quickly those reverse out, just to, I suppose, help us understand how quickly gross margins can improve from here.
Yep, absolutely. I'll let Stefan talk about margin.
In terms of the land, the 100 sites is illustrative and no more than that. What it demonstrates is the kind of trajectory that we need to achieve to hit that medium-term target of 3,000 units. I mean, in terms of, I don't think we've got forecasts out there beyond 2028, but we've talked about medium-term, approximately five years from a standing start to get us to 3,000. We have, say, we've got the land in the pipeline. Being precise on numbers for anything much beyond the next couple of years gets difficult because of that planning system. However, one would hope that the planning is not going to get more difficult from here.
With an average time from submission to permission of something in excess of 24 months in Gleeson Homes, you'd hope that it would start to improve from here. We have seen one or two that have come through a bit more quickly recently. That's why we're not too specific. We can't be so specific on the precise trajectory out beyond the next couple of years. For the next couple of years, we can see that we can see those permissions coming. We can see that growth. We're pleased with the progress we've made to date, and we expect to continue on the trajectory to hit that 3,000 in the time horizon we've suggested. Stefan, did you want to pick up on the gross margin?
Yeah.
I mean, we had, we'd been flagging for a while that our gross margins would kind of follow the sector, which is to be lower. We do think that this first half is the low point for our gross margins. I'll come back in a second to why that is. Proportionately, what does that lower gross margin come from? It really comes from four things. It is extended prelims. You know, if you're on a site for another month, that's another GBP 35,000 you're spending on that site as your fixed costs. It comes from build cost increases, where we had 1% over the last six months, in a period where, whilst underlying completion prices were higher, actually the underlying prices on reservations were flat. You get build cost inflation.
That, that's going to slightly chip away at your margin. We did have, we have some older sites where we had, you remember a year ago, some higher costs. Those older sites are still working the way through, as in we haven't yet finished completing those sites. Of course, there is the impact of multi-unit, multi-unit transactions. You know, whilst we have to do multi-unit transactions, we have to offer them at perhaps higher incentives than we offer our open market customers. All of those are having an impact. The bulk impact is quite significant as well. Now, in terms of why do I think margins will recover? Because I've done the maths, and it's pretty clear. We've got higher margin sites coming through from those that we're closing.
What do I expect, what do I expect underlying selling prices to do compared to build cost inflation? That's a good question. We are expecting somewhere between 2-3% over the next six months. I would hope that we can fairly soon start reducing the amount of incentives that we're offering, and we can increase our gross prices at a faster pace than we currently are. We are increasing our gross prices still. I would hope that we can increase them at a faster pace, faster pace. By reducing incentives, we would also stimulate higher extras. Of course, if you give customers higher incentives, they have less need to spend more on extras. I would hope that we'd be able to recover that, but we'll wait and see over the next six months. Thanks, Roger.
Just to follow up, the 100 sites, things like on the homes, it was also a question on the land side as well. No, that's fine. I don't think it was very clear. Yes, do you think, do you think Gleeson Land can get to sort of 100, 100 plots in the portfolio? Is that, is that a ceiling, or do you think it can go further, as the business grows?
It's definitely, it's definitely not a, definitely not a ceiling. We can get there. And, you know, the, I mean, the capacity in, the capacity in that business is, well, I don't think we, I don't think we've, I don't think we've put a limit on it. You know, in the structure that we have, we're now covering probably half the country.
Am I overstating that? We are just testing that potential ourselves. I mean, privately between you and me, Guy's already knocking on my door saying, "Graham, I can't, I'm going to struggle to process this." We are making good headway, and our reputation is really preceding us. The nature of that market is that as the reputation grows, the agents start to come to you. This is the beauty of the regional structure that Guy's put in place. We are excited by the pace at which it's growing. As I say, we're pretty high, that overhead is pretty highly leveraged. We can put on a lot more sites for bringing in a handful more people.
That is certainly what we have got to contemplate over the next six to 12 months. Harry.
Thank you.
Morning.
Harry Goad, Berenberg. I have got
two cheap seats this morning, Harry.
I am. Two questions, nevertheless, though. Thank you. The first one, just on build costs, could you remind us where we are at on things like future home standard, building regulations, energy efficiency, just whether there is any more cost inflation to come through in the next couple of years on a sort of like-for-like template of a standard house type? The second one, separate question, is you alluded to funding issues for Ho using Associations, social housing.
Is there a moment, sort of, is there a date this year we can look forward to where that gets rectified, or is there a possibility that just gets delayed as we progress through the year into maybe next year? Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Harry. Yeah. Let's take that second one first. I mean, obviously, if the quality of Berenberg's got all sorts of high-level contacts, any, any word you can have, listen. The Chancellor could come out tomorrow, is where I'm guessing to, and say, "I am bringing forward an element of that settlement in order to fire up the Housing Associations," because it's inevitable that any CSR, any Comprehensive Spending Review, there's going to be a budget for homes.
It's a slight mystery to me as to, I realize she doesn't want to give the exact allocation to that part of the market. She wants to sort her entire budget before she sorts any of it. Inevitably, there's going to be a budget for homes. Why not bring forward an element now and just deduct it from the total when you announce, when you make the announcement in the summer? That's an idea. The position is that we currently, there's not a date for the Comprehensive Spending Review. She hasn't said you've got to wait for the CSR. I'm assuming that's when it'll be. Whenever we get the CSR, June, July, who knows? I'm hopeful there will be funding for the Housing Associations.
You know, we're very close to a number of quite significant associations, and they're ready to rumble. They need to know that they've got the funding to commit. As I say, it can't be any clearer than that. We live in hope. Back to your question, your question on build costs coming through from Future Homes. We're fully provided and budgeted for everything that is currently in law, if you like. Obviously, the biggest element remains the heat pumps, you know, air source heat pumps and what have you, the whole heating piece, which is in the rearview mirror now. We're building them. They're in the budgets. That's sorted. The next` big step is the FH25.
The big question in there is what is, what will be the final settlement on photovoltaic PV? We are still, and there is no decision on that as yet. That is key. I do, we have to, it is likely that we will have to install an element of PV. Pointless getting into the pros and cons of that. It is what is that element, before it, how much PV relative to the floor space in the house do we have to install? That is what will drive the costs. Mark, I do not think there is anything, I think that is the key uncertainty at the moment, is it not?
Yeah. Just making sure that the material specs and how to build this is in line in terms of insulation, which you set up for.
Yeah.
That is not going to add significantly to the cost. That is the only uncertainty, and it is not of the order of the Part L transition that we all went through two, three years ago. Thank you. Clyde, sorry.
I think I have two, Graham, if I may. Help to Buy. There has been a bit of speculation we might get version two. I have been interested in your take on that. Also, how do you think your business would be prepared? I mean, if it was brought in this year, are you ready to really benefit from that? That was the first one. The second question really was aimed at asset turn for the business. Clearly, Partnerships is going to help your asset turn.
What else are you doing within homes and within land to try and improve that side of the equation for generating that better ROE?
Very good. Thank you. Help to Buy, what's the phrase, your mouth to God's ear or something? I mean, look, it was a highly successful device, which served not only stimulated the market extensively. It helped an awful lot of people who, you know, get it, get on, get onto the ladder. Do we expect? I personally, I don't expect it. Not because it wasn't a, I mean, it benefited Governments, as we all know. They made profits out of it, but they do have to fund it.
I would have thought if we do see any kind of new generation Help to Buy, they'll probably ask the house builders because, of course, we're cash machines. We've got endless reserves to pay for everything. They'll ask us to contribute. We'll take a look at it. Are we, but are we prepared? If we got Help to Buy two tomorrow, are we prepared? Absolutely, we're prepared. You know, we would react very, very quickly. On Sunday, Angela Rayner reiterated that their offering to support the market is the Mortgage Guarantee Scheme. Those have never been serious, there's never been great take-up for the mortgage guarantees, for things like guarantee schemes.
Normally the banks step in, and when I hear this morning they can comment, normally they step in and say, "We'll, you know, we don't want you taking a, a, eating our lunch. Thanks very much. We'll deal with that." We are absolutely, our plans don't rest on, we're not, as you heard me say, we're not sitting here drumming our fingers on the table waiting for assistance from Government. If we get it, great. And boy, oh boy, are we ready to use it? Yes. We'll see. Turning to asset turn, I mean, the key, and I'll let Stefan comment specifically, the key to that is, is the profit, is the, is the, is that numerator or the denominator? It's the numerator, isn't it? It's getting that, it's getting the profits up.
That's, that will drive in, you know, getting the margin back, getting the volumes back up, and getting the, getting the profits up. That's what'll drive our asset turn. Stefan, I don't know if you want to.
Yeah. I think it's fair to say a few years ago we were very margin-focused, and our sales rate was, we were probably holding ourselves back. What I think will drive a return to a very healthy return on capital and a healthy asset turn is, you know, when the market recovers and we see a consistent strong sales rate, and we are building to the pace at which we can, we can sell.
Now, interestingly, the last four weeks with an encouraging start, and perhaps, you know, if we touch wood and cross our fingers and our toes, that may continue, and that will be the start of it. I think also importantly, the partnership strategy really does, and you mentioned this, it really does, I think, help significantly. I think thirdly, when we see a return to strong profit levels in Gleeson Land, which is a high return on capital business because it doesn't own the land, it's just got capitalized, promotion costs on the balance sheet, which are reasonably modest, I think that will also help. I think we're, we're, and we're at a low point in terms of profit margins, sales, pace of sales, and at the start of our partnership strategy.
I think the combination of delivering on those is going to see the asset turn improve and then, ROCE, follow it.
Really the other, really important like graph that's on whatever it was, slide 21, don't forget that that 19,000 units in Gleeson Homes land bank is not, is not paid for. You know, seeing that we have, we run a good model of holding back the completion of the land until we're ready to go. That also helps.
I don't, Alastair, morning.
Alastair Stewart from Progressive. Just a quick follow-up question on build costs. It's going to be 2-3% in the next six months just for the avoidance of doubt.
Is that an annualized 2-3% during the first six months, sorry, the next six months, or is it during the next six months? Where is that coming from? Are there any areas that are seeing particular hikes and falls?
Stefan's got the piece of paper.
If I can read it through these glasses. Yeah. It is 2-3% absolute. It is not annualized. It is not 1-1.5% for those six months period. Listen, that 2-3% is a bit of a guess, actually. We do not really know how much of the NI impact is going to be passed through. If you work it out all the way down the chain, that is 1%.
Yeah.
That would be taking, if we saw underlying 2%, then it would take it to 3%. Where do we expect it over the—oh, where were you seeing it rate as now? We were expecting it in labor. I mean, the last—in labor, particularly in labor, lesser in materials. The last six months, there was more increase in labor than materials, and especially in groundworkers. We did see some material cost increases over the last six months, particularly plaster material and bricks. Going forward, I would say the pressure really is on labor. As volumes start to increase, with the skilled labor force perhaps not increasing at the same pace, I think we'll see that come through in labor rates, particularly groundworkers further.
What sort of inflation are the groundworkers at just now?
Usually, they usually start about 20%.
Where do they go to?
It's a negotiation, isn't it? It's driven by the strength of the market. You know, I know you're only a boy, but you've seen as many cycles as me. The groundwork, it starts with land. You know, the benefit, the strength of the market that Guy is seeing is a pain for Mark because it's harder work in Mark's business. Very quickly, the groundworkers follow on. The other market is coming back to life, after that long period of downturn. The groundworkers are getting busy again. And guess what? Next, it'll be the brickies.
Great.
Great. Come around again.
Yeah. Sorry.
Please, have some more.
Yeah.
One follow-up on partnerships.
Yeah
You've obviously stuck to your target to have one per region by the year end. Does that require any currently on Government funding for Housing Associations or
does it rely on?
yeah.
Good question. Undoubtedly, if we get the, if we were to get the Government funding in March, I think we'd be home and hosed. I'm just putting pressure on my team there. I don't think we'll get the funding in March. It will depend on when it comes. I would say to get all six, we probably do need that to happen. The team are fantastic, great enthusiasm.
They talk to the whole market, and I would not put it past them to achieve it, even if we do not see the CSR, but that is stretching them.
Great. Thanks.
Very good. Do we have any, any questions online? Harry is waving at me.
We have got a couple of questions from Andy Murphy from Edison. First question is on Gleeson Land, where bid and win rates doubled. What has changed deliberately increasing offer prices or other reasons?
What was the very last bit? What has changed?
What has changed deliberately increasing offer prices or other reasons?
Yeah. No, just to stress, and I probably we have mentioned that since the question was asked, but we are absolutely not changing our hurdles. Guy, Stefan, and I go through every bid, in detail.
We, because it's a lot of, having said we leverage our overhead, once we take a site on, there's a hell of a lot of work to bring that through. We need to know there's a minimum level of profit in each site, and we need to manage our risk. We are absolutely not dropping our hurdles. The bid rate and the win rate is all a consequence, as I say, of having people on the ground in the regions, building our reputation, and building that reputation for delivering and offering great customer satisfaction.
Great. Thank you. Next question was about sales outlets, which are to grow by 10% per annum. What is the key driver of confidence in achieving this level of expansion?
Our confidence is because we have the land, we have the plans, and we have the people. What's the, so we can clearly see the route to getting those outlets open. We also, importantly, have the capital. The biggest drag remains getting the planning, getting the implementable planning conditions. Right now, I mean, absent an asteroid hitting and another market crash, we are striding towards that increase in outlets and output. As I say, we can only actually on the ground run as fast as the local authorities let us.
Thank you. There are no further questions from the webcast, so I'll hand back over to you.
Thank you very much. Thanks again to you all for coming. Nice to see you.
We look forward to catching up with some of you over the next few days. Many thanks.