Belvoir Group PLC (AIM:BLV) said its growth strategy remains on track despite households now facing an increase in headwinds.
The property franchise and financial services company reported a 12% increase in revenue for the six months ended June 30, 2022, to £15.4mln compared to £13.8mln for the same period a year earlier.
However, Belvoir saw its first half 2022 profit before tax fall to £4.0mln, down from £4.8mln in the first half of 2021.
"Given the stamp duty holiday and the post-lockdown pent-up demand last year, 2021 was always going to be a hard act to follow for the UK property sector," said Belvoid chief executive Dorian Gonsalves.
In a statement, Belvoir noted that while the housing market has remained resilient, households are facing increasing headwinds in the form of higher inflation, mortgage rates and rent. There “has been no obvious increase in the supply of houses to market that would otherwise have eased this upward pressure”, the company said.
It said, however, that the letting market remains active with strong demand from tenants, with households spending 30.2% on average of their income on rent in July, largely unchanged in the last four years.
Additionally, the mortgage market has a pipeline of written business, with the lower number of mortgages mitigated by an increase in the average value of these transactions.
As a result of achieving profitability in the first six months, the company said its board is confident in reaching its expectations for full-year 2022.
"The group's investment in businesses to expand both the property and the financial services divisions, and the strong pipelines of house sales and related mortgages at the start of H2, underpin the board's confidence of achieving managements' expectations for the full financial year," said Gonsalves.
Belvoir also announced that Michael Stoop, its non-executive chairman, will be stepping down from the board at the end of the month to focus on his other business interests. He will be replaced by Jon Di-Stefano, who was appointed as a non-executive director in April 2022.