Following a year which included a hike in interest rates, changes to property tax laws, and continued Brexit negotiations, the UK housing market is still facing a shortage of mass proportions. Some experts have labeled the issue a crisis by the year 2020 if extreme numbers of homes are not constructed. This demand for homes is currently propping up the building sector of the market and helping many companies moving forward.

House builder Persimmon is experiencing great amounts of growth due to high demand and big plans for high numbers of houses to be built. With a surge in overall profits of more than 20% in 2017 compared to the year before, the home builder posted a gain in revenue of almost 10%.

The company sold more than 16,000 properties last year which is an increase of 6% compared to the previous year. The average selling price of those homes increased 3% during that time.

More housing starts have been prompted by a number of government programs to aid in the problem of housing shortage. The Help to Buy programme is one of them.

Housing shortage is in the face of the market and will not be solved with one simple solution, but companies like Persimmon are manufacturing homes daily to slow down the possibility of a crisis.

Persimmon commented on the current climate within the house building sector, saying: Persimmon said: “We continued to experience healthy customer demand for new homes through the autumn sales season and the value of our forward sales on 31 December 2017 was 10% ahead of the prior year.”