Sean Mulryan’s Ballymore Properties has offered redundancies to 30 of its roughly 700 employees in London over the past three months, according to sources. One of the UK capital’s biggest homebuilders, the company is the latest developer to cut jobs in the face of a housing slump.
All affected employees accepted the redundancy offer, the sources said. A Ballymore spokesperson declined to comment.
Britain’s housing market is enduring a fall in activity triggered by higher borrowing costs and the threat of a drop in house prices. Some of the country’s biggest homebuilders – including Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey – have predicted declining sales in 2023, with the latter also warning of job cuts this year.
Vistry Group has also told hundreds of employees they may lose their jobs as the company cuts costs, Bloomberg News reported last week.
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Ballymore, which built more than 9,000 homes in Ireland and Britain over the past five years, warned in December that the “near term outlook for the UK appears very challenging”. The cost of a new mortgage deal has spiralled since September’s UK mini-budget, making homes less affordable for most customers.
Still, there’s a glimmer of hope that the UK has already endured the worst of its housing slump. Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey, and Barratt Developments have all noted signs of improvement in weekly private sales since the start of the year. – Bloomberg
