Redrow suffers worst loss to date

The prices for new houses have fallen sharply

Redrow, one of the UK's largest housebuilders, has suffered its worst set of annual results - reporting a pre-tax loss of £140.8m.

Its sales fell by 54% to £301.8m as it sold fewer homes - and those which were bought fetched lower prices.

Housebuilders have suffered a torrid year as prices slumped by around a quarter from peak levels.

But in a sign that the property market is stabilising, it said it did not foresee further write-downs.

And the loss - which was £44.2m before write-downs and other one-off items - was not as bad as some analysts had been expecting.

"We are now in a position to move forward and assuming we experience stability in the market, we do not foresee further net write-downs being required," said chairman and founder Steve Morgan.

"It is intensely disappointing to me to have to report the worst set of trading results in the company's history.

"I am determined to ensure that this will not be repeated and, along with the rest of the management team, am clearly focused on steering the business back to delivering the sort of robust performance that it has delivered in the past."

It sold 2,113 homes in the year to the end of June - almost half the number of completed deals in the previous year.

Its average selling price fell 12% to £137,400 from £156,900.