Housebuilder plans Yorkshire expansion
At the '‹moment the group is focused on its South Yorkshire and East Midlands heartlands, selling houses for an average of £250,000 to £260,000, and it sees a lucrative market beyond this niche.'‹Colin Lewis, chief executive of Avant Homes, said:'‹ "There is a sector of the market that sees our product as too expensive - the sub £200,000 market."We spent 18 months developing nine new designs that are easier to build and have a smaller foot print. "The feedback we are getting is that you an tell it's an Avant home - they are open plan, have feature kitchens and fully tiled bathrooms'‹ - but they're in a simpler form and less expensive to build. We are giving these customers the Avant premium."The group said the move will support '‹its '‹expansion beyond the immediate aim of delivering £500m turnover and 2,000 completions a year. '‹The'‹ nine new house types range from 630 sq ft two-bedroom homes to 1,140 sq ft four-bedroom homes. "We will be taking on the big housebuilders like Persimmon and Taylor '‹Wimpey, which are doing very well in that part of the market," said Mr Lewis.'‹The'‹ news follows a string of recent announcements underlining the acceleration of the '‹g'‹roup’s growth strategy. In July, Avant'‹ '‹secured an enhanced £200m banking facility to significantly increase its new land acquisitions in '‹Yorkshire, the '‹North '‹E'‹ast, the Midlands and the central belt of Scotland. This closely followed the announcement of record results in the '‹12 months to April '‹30. The group said a significant improvement in performance was underpinned by an increase in total completions to 1,636 homes, up 35 per cent year-on-year.Since then, '‹Avant has delivered a strong forward sales position for its 2018 financial year, with 1,220 home sales and £292m of revenue already secured four months into the year. '‹Avant said this reflects positive customer demand, with the '‹g'‹roup '‹seeing a strong sales rate of 0.75 sales per site per week during the traditionally quiet summer period.“The exciting extension to our product range speaks to our growth ambitions and ongoing mission to make our aspirational product available to more customers in our core northern UK markets'‹," said Mr Lewis'‹.'‹"'‹I was inspired by the Housing Market Intelligence Conference in 2015 which highlighted the market need for more attainable homes. We have been developing this extension to our product range across the last two years with the key aim of offering a compelling mixture of leading edge design and high specification at a price point which would make an Avant home available to more people. '‹"'‹While average property sales volumes are continuing their recovery in Avant’s regions, these are still '‹around '‹40'‹ per cent'‹ below their 2007 highs.'‹"'‹