Taylor Wimpey, Foxtons say buyer interest heats up post-election

LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) - Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey and London estate agent Foxtons said activity in the property market had stepped up since May's national election, with buyers' confidence boosted by sustainable levels of price inflation and low mortgage rates.

Taylor Wimpey (LSE: TW.L - news) 's Chief Executive Peter Redfern said that although the market had not been as disrupted by the election as he expected, activity had picked up in after May 7.

"Even (Taiwan OTC: 6436.TWO - news) before the election it was more stable and more positive than we'd expected," he said on Wednesday.

"After the election that positivity has stepped up and our sales rates are about 10 percent up on last year."

He said the market was underpinned by price inflation of 3-4 percent, which he said felt more balanced and sustainable than levels of 10 percent seen a year or so ago.

The British company said it would return more cash to shareholders after pretax profit rose by a third to 238 million pounds ($371.97 million) in the first half, and it said its land bank was big enough to sustain its ambition of building around 14,000 homes a year.

It will pay investors 300 million pounds in July 2016, a 20 percent increase on the special dividend paid this year.

Foxtons said uncertainty before the election, and a cooling off in London's red hot property market in the last year hit its profit, but it was confident that sales would bounce back in the second half of the year.

Activity had increased since the poll, which was won by the Conservative party, it said.

"This is encouraging and we enter the second half of the year with stock levels up 12 percent compared with last year, a 1 billion pound sales pipeline and our recently opened branches continuing to mature in line with expectations," Chief Executive Nic Budden said.

Property sales revenue fell 11 percent in the first half from a year ago, when it said the sales market was operating at its peak, while pretax profit of 18.1 million pounds was down from 23.1 million a year earlier.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Foxtons were up 8.7 percent at 242.5 pence at 0943 GMT, while Taylor Wimpey was down 0.6 percent at flat at 181.6 pence. ($1 = 0.6405 pounds) (Reporting by Paul Sandle, editing by Louise Heavens)