UK Home Builders: Positive read-throughs for the sector from MJ Gleeson trading update

Research evidence excerpt

UK Home Builders: Positive read-throughs for the sector from MJ Gleeson trading update

Equity Research

13 July 2026 | 9:46PM BST

UK Home Builders: Positive read-throughs for the sector from MJ

Gleeson trading update

On Friday (10 July 2026), MJ Gleeson reported a trading update ahead of its FY26 Rebecca Parker

+44(20)7051-6646 |

results. The small, Northern- and Midlands-exposed home builder rallied 5% on the rebecca.x.parker@gs.com

Goldman Sachs International

day, as it expects PBT for 2026 to be in line with current market expectations. We

Jonathan Kownator

think this reaffirms our thesis that continued delivery against guidance will continue +44(20)7051-2974 |

to support a re-rating for the UK home builders. Valuation for the sector remains jonathan.kownator@gs.comGoldman Sachs International

undemanding, with sector P/B of 0.6x implying a terminal RoE of 5%, versus our Kuber Sood, CFA

forecast of 6.4% in FY26E. +1(332)245-7812Goldman Sachs India| kuber.sood@gs.comSPL

We expect fairly resilient sales rates given a volatile backdrop: Net reservation

rates for MJ over the last six months were down -10% to 0.8 (vs. previous year at

0.88), whilst excluding multi unit agreements down -17% to 0.53 (vs previous year

0.64). However, we would not extrapolate this result across the whole sector, given

that smaller home builders such as MJ Gleeson may experience more volatile sales

movements. Our forecasts for the home builders currently assume a 3% to 5%

decline in sales rates over 2026, and we continue to see relative affordability as

supporting demand and sales rates. Whilst affordability has weakened, we estimate

mortgage payments as a % of income to sit at 31% in Dec-26, which is still well below

peak levels seen in the recent downturn of 39% in 2022.