House-builder Persimmon (LON:PSN) gave another positive trading update, but shares fell on valuation concerns.
Persimmon said trading improved in the autumn selling season, with numbers of people visting its sites running 5% ahead of last year.
The group's private sales rate in the period since it reported its half-year results in August was 12% ahead of last year, building on the 5% stronger sales rate through the summer.
It said improvements in the mortgage market such as the introduction of improved regulation and Bank of England oversight measures should support a more stable and sustainable UK housing market.
Persimmon said it expected strong growth to continue, with 105 new housing developments opened in the second half to date and another 20 sites planned in the rest of the year.
It said its operating margin continued to move forward and it expected further progress in the second half of the year from 20.5% achieved in the first six months.
"We are now fully sold up for the current year and have c. £780 million of forward sales reserved beyond 2015, an increase of 12% on the same point last year (2014: £696 million)," the group said in its update.
Persimmon added that land availability was improving as a result of the consistent application of the National Planning Policy Framework with local plans identifying sustainable locations for housing in increasing numbers. To date the group has acquired over 16,000 plots of new land this year.
But shares in the group fell 22p to 1899p. Broker Hargreaves Lansdown said the market viewed the stock as a weak hold.
Analyst Keith Bowman said: "Persimmon continues to deliver, with ongoing cash generation and a firmly established focus on shareholder returns underwriting investor attraction.
"Nonetheless and with the share price up over 30% during the last year compared to a decline of 2% for the wider FTSE100 index, valuation concerns have begun to grow louder. Worries regarding rising interest rates add to the mix, with analyst consensus opinion, on balance, currently denoting a weak hold."