Last month we reported some mixed news from the housebuilding industry, this month it is difficult to be that positive. For the last few weeks hardly a day has gone by without the media reporting a bad news story about the construction and housing market.

Smaller to medium sized developers are undoubtedly feeling the pressure and some experts believe that many will face financial meltdown as sales decrease and overpriced land deals combine to force many out of business.

The major players are equally feeling the pain. Bovis, Taylor Wimpey, Barratt and Miller, all agree that current market conditions are the worst they’ve seen for the past decade. Persimmon has announced that they have put the start of new sites on hold until the market improves. The main cause doesn’t appear to be lack of interest from potential buyers, Persimmon described visitor levels in March as ‘encouraging’; the blame seems to lie with the difficulty in obtaining a mortgage.

That said, there maybe a silver lining for some. It was reported recently that Scottish housebuilder Stewart Milne is planning to take advantage of the downturn by aggressively pursing land opportunities in the hopes of acquiring sites at a decent price. No doubt Stewart Milne are hoping to emulate the 1990’s success of Tony Pidgley.

For people looking for a new role this all adds up to a difficult time. Let’s hope that Pidgley is right when he was quoted as saying, ‘This crisis has come so quickly. But then, I think it could go away just as quickly.’ Let’s wait and see what May brings.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 8:01 am and is filed under News, Property. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.