Taylor Wimpey autumn sales slow as UK budget looms

(Reuters) -Taylor Wimpey on Wednesday reported a softer autumn selling season as British buyers held back ahead of the budget announcement, sending shares down nearly 4%, but the home builder stuck to its full-year profit and completions forecasts.

The company became the latest home builder alongside Barratt Redrow and Bellway to flag waning demand as buyers face uncertainty over what will happen to property taxes in the November 26 budget.

"Market conditions remain challenging, impacted by uncertainty ahead of the upcoming UK budget and continued affordability pressures," CEO Jennie Daly said in a statement.

As the broader industry grapples with regulatory hurdles, including over land development and safety reforms, Taylor Wimpey said it was seeing better engagement with local authorities and had had some success on planning approvals.

It reaffirmed its expectations to deliver UK completions of between 10,400 to 10,800 homes and group operating profit of about 424 million pounds ($569 million) for 2025, and said it is on track to end the year with 210-215 outlets.

Completions refer to homes where the sale has been finalised and ownership transferred to buyers.

Taylor Wimpey, which had swung to a first-half pretax loss in July and cut its annual profit forecast due to one-off charges, said it continued to see low single-digit build cost inflation and broadly flat underlying pricing in the year.

The company's weekly net private sales rate dropped to 0.63 per outlet for the June 30 to November 9 period, from 0.71 a year earlier.

As of November 9, its order book excluding joint ventures stood at 7,253 homes, down from 7,771 homes last year.

Shares of peers Barratt Redrow, Persimmon and Berkeley were all trading down between 1% and 2% early on Wednesday. Persimmon is scheduled to report its third quarter trading update on Thursday.

Peel Hunt analysts said Taylor Wimpey's volume growth may be more modest in 2026 with its order book unlikely to materially improve, given current conditions.

($1 = 0.7451 pounds)

(Reporting by Raechel Thankam Job in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Alison Williams)