IT has endured a tumultuous time since the surge in interest rates caused havoc in the housing market.
But perhaps there are signs that Scottish housebuilder Springfield Properties is putting the worst behind it.
The Elgin-based company was forced to react decisively in September as the housing market was continuing to unravel on the back of rising interest rates. Through successive rate rises by the Bank of England in response to surging inflation, the cost of buying a home had gradually become more expensive - both for those trying to get on to the housing ladder and those who previously had mortgages fixed at much lower rates of interest.
READ MORE: Scots engineers building big returns for global investors
As demand for homes contracted, Springfield suspended dividend payments and began to sell off swathes of land to ease the pressure on its balance sheet. The company announced its latest land sale on Monday, lifting the total amount it has raised from disposals to £18 million since it embarked on the strategy in October.
But while it has been crucial for the firm to reduce its debt, recent signs that confidence was beginning to return to the housing market have been just as significant.
Springfield will not have been pleased to report an 80% fall in interim pre-tax profits to £1.2m for the six months to November 30 today. But it will certainly have provided some relief to the firm that private housing reservation rates have shown “initial signs of recovery with a return in homebuyer confidence” since the start of the calendar year.
READ MORE: Ardgowan Distillery chief hails 'aspiration' of £20m project
Speaking to The Herald today, chief executive Innes Smith was certainly not getting carried away with this nascent recovery, but he did express cautious optimism over the outlook.
He was equally hopeful of securing further land sales, which should help Springfield achieve its target of reducing net debt to £40m by the end of 2025.
“Sales have picked up January, February, which is a good signal, and that has been echoed by all housebuilders across the market,” he said. “[There are] reasons to be positive, although you have got to be cautious at the same time.”
UP Holiday Inn owner InterContinental Hotels Group has seen full-year earnings rise to more than $1 billion (£794 million) for the first time in its history thanks to booming travel demand.
DOWN The FTSE-100 index at 2:45pm was down 13.61 at 7,714.89.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here