Building Homes datafile

The month
The stock market continued its new found romance with housebuilding this month although whether it will prove to be a quick affair and a long-term relationship remains to be seen. Despite city hopes for further consolidation it is hard to see where this will occur in the short term.

Stockwatch

• Berkeley Group is to redevelop the Royal Clarence Yard, Gosport, the largest naval dockyard built in the 19th century, to provide 380 homes, a 130-berth marina and offices. The £100m Portsmouth harbour scheme, which features the St George Barracks next to the dockyard, includes conversion of Grade II listed former officers' quarters, and is Berkeley's largest outside London. It will take up to five years to finish.

• Country & Metropolitan has unveiled strong results due to shrewd landbank investment. Profits surged 37% to £1m on sales up 4% to £8.6m. It continues to show an interest in Leeds-based Tay Homes in which it has built a near 10% stake and is also eyeing smaller takeover targets.

• Countryside Properties has reported a 19% first half rise in pre-tax profits to £12.2m on turnover 19% higher at £160.4m, in the six months to March 31. The company sold 355 homes in the first half, up from 312 last time, at an average price up £2000 to £233 000.

• Scotland's Bett Brothers looks set to shed its hotels and pubs operation. The Stirling-based firm earns more than 75% of revenue from housebuilding. The group posted first half pre-tax profits profits of £3.01m up 12% from £2.69m for the same period last year. Turnover rose 10% to £30.65m.

• Beazer's social housing division, put up for sale following the company's takeover by Persimmon is expected to be sold to a management-led consortium. However, Countryside chief executive Graham Cherry has expressed an interest in the Beazer business, but said not the Torwood timber-frame production arm.

Electrical goods watch
The colour tv market is performing strongly year-on-year with unit volume up by 9.1% and value up 11.2%. But these figures are misleading as market value is not holding. Prices in all sectors (including wide screen) are going down.

But the reason for the healthy increase in spending is the massive move to higher price wide screen televisions. Sales volumes of wide screen 28 in sets have risen by 50.4% and 32 in wide screens by 23%. The even-bigger 36 in and over are up year-on-year by 32% by value. Above 32 in sets now account for more than 50% of the market by value.

The move towards bigger TVs is across the board and there has been a massive drop in conventional 4:3 (non-widescreen). As big sets have become cheaper price difference between smaller 14 in and bigger televisions has been eroded. There has also been a growth in projection TVs but from a lower base.

However not all of the 28 in and above televisions have Dolby sound. Real flat televisions are also growing and are being perceived as valuable products.

Housebuilders should be aware of the space implications of siting bigger TVs. Sales of digital televisions with built in terrestrial decoder boxes are also growing and digital television prices are down 24% year-on-year.

"If the market last year saw 4.8m units sold in the year the significant landmark of 5m sets in a year should be surpassed by the end of 2001," says GfK account director, Nick Simon.