Today it was the turn of Bovis Homes and Redrow to add to the doom and gloom of the housing sector. Both companies will cut 40% of their workforce which will mean 400 job losses for Bovis, whilst Redrow will shed 550 posts.

This is the bleakest state the housing market has been in for years. Job cuts, falling sales prices, low numbers of reservations and an increasing number of cancelled purchases makes for tough trading conditions. The attention has turned from profitability to cashflow as builders look to ensure the Bank covenants are not breached.

Despite the poor outlook, the markets reacted well to the news. Bovis Homes shares rose 5.5 pence, or 1.7% to 323p, while shares in Redrow gained 3.6% to close at 100p. Redrow shares rose as much as 14% earlier in the session before dropping back to close 3.6% higher.

Tags: bovis homes, redrow

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Economy, Property, Stocks and Shares. 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.