Those looking for top growth shares to buy today should pay some serious attention to Springfield Properties (LSE: SPR). I’m expecting a cheery set of trading numbers when the homebuilder updates the market on 25 February, ones that could lend extra strength to its already-rocketing share price.
Bellway, Countryside Properties and Vistry are just a few of a raft of housebuilders to signal strong market conditions in recent weeks. It’d be more than a little odd to expect anything different from Springfield, a firm which rose 36% in value in 2019 on a steady stream of bright updates.
Survey this!
There’s been a slew of positive house price gauges since the start of 2020 too. And the latest report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) today has kept the trend going.
It said that “renewed optimism from buyers and sellers saw a continued pick-up in sales activity across the UK housing market” in January. The number of surveyors reporting a rise in home values swung to a net balance of +17 last month from -2 in December, RICS noted. It is also a vast improvement from the -11 recorded in November.
January’s reading is the first one in positive territory since July 2018. But respondents don’t expect the so-called Boris Bounce since December’s general election to be a mere flash in the pan. Indeed, it notes that “respondents to the survey expect this refreshed optimism to continue with sales anticipated to rise across all UK regions, both in the near term and for the year to come.”
I bought shares in Barratt and Taylor Wimpey — another couple of stocks that have released positive trading number since New Year’s Day — a few years back on expectation of strong demand for their newbuilds well into the 2020s, at least. And there’s little since then to have watered down my optimism.
More minister churn
Government simply hasn’t got to grips with building enough homes to meet buyer interest. It is still some way off its target of creating 300,000 new homes. The revolving door of housing ministers over the last decade hasn’t helped Whitehall develop sound policies to alleviate the shortfall. And today saw another Minister of State for Housing and Planning, Esther McVey, booted out the door. Her replacement will be the eleventh head of the department since 2010.
It’s no wonder that the likes of Springfield have continued to report strong profits growth in recent years. Even the unprecedented levels of political and economic uncertainty related to Brexit haven’t blown it off course.
And City analysts expect profits to keep on booming at Springfield, too. A 9% bottom-line rise is predicted for the financial year to May 2020. And an 11% improvement is anticipated for fiscal 2021. The business carries a forward P/E ratio of 9 times presently, one that I feel is too low to miss. Particularly with the likelihood of more top trading numbers released in the coming days too.
