Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Taylor Wimpey trading update call. We will begin in approximately a minute's time. You will have the opportunity to ask a question at the end of the presentation. If you would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Thank you for your patience. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Taylor Wimpey trading update call, and thank you for your patience. My name is Daisy, and I'll be coordinating today's call. You will have the opportunity to ask a question at the end of the presentation. If you would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the call over to your host, Jennie Daly, the Chief Executive of Taylor Wimpey, to begin. Jennie, please go ahead. Thank you, Daisy. Good morning, all, and thank you for joining us. I'm joined as usual this morning by Chris Carney, our Group Finance Director. You'll have already seen the trading statement this morning, and I'd expect much of your focus will be around what we're currently seeing in the market. I'll concentrate my introductory comments there, and I'll give you a bit of color on how we're managing the business in the current environment before we move on to your questions. Beginning from the top then, I'm pleased to say that despite the backdrop, we're on track to deliver group operating profit for 2022 in line with expectations. Although the shape of that will look a little different than we anticipated, with group completions broadly flat on last year. This performance has been achieved through the dedication and hard work of our people across all the business, for which I thank them, and through our continuing focus on margin and our drive to deliver operational efficiency, ensuring that we deliver maximum value for our stakeholders. In line with our strategy of operational excellence, we remain focused on cost control in all areas of the business, including in supply and procurement, and of course, benefiting from our land strategy. Despite continuing concerns around the operation of the planning system at all levels, and the challenges and frustration that this presents to our business and teams on the ground, I'm extremely pleased to see that their focus has been rewarded by the increase in outlets coming through. This is also a testament, I think, to our strong land position, which gives us and so our customers more choice, while providing the business with the opportunity to adapt more rapidly to the market conditions in front of us. Since I last spoke with you, there's no doubt that the landscape for customers has changed as a result of cost of living concerns, the increase in mortgage rates, and the resultant market uncertainty. As you know, mortgage availability came under pressure in late September as lenders temporarily withdrew products, and although they quickly returned to the market, they were at significantly higher levels. Unsurprisingly, we saw an increase in cancellations around these events, predominantly from customers early in the home buying process. Many lenders had already factored in last week's Bank of England base rate announcement in their pricing and as a result, have not raised rates. I'm pleased to report that we have started to see a number of lenders moving to bring mortgage rates down from their peaks with a good range of mortgage availability across all LTVs. For example, last week we saw Barclays reduce their 85% LTV five-year fixed by 0.5%. I think actions like this will go some way to supporting our customer confidence in stabilized mortgage rates and pricing. Underlying demand does remain, and we don't see this abating in the longer term. The customer desire to get onto or move up the housing ladder continues to be encouraging, with our teams reporting good levels of early interest, albeit as you might expect, we're seeing slower conversion rates. For customers in the order book with mortgages agreed prior to the recent changes or for those who have exchanged contracts, we see them continuing to be extremely keen to progress their home purchase. For customers whose mortgage deals are coming to an end and will need to renew, I don't think it will surprise you to hear that it's no longer a case of rolling over the same deal as mortgage servicing costs have risen materially in the last few weeks, so their decisions are more finely balanced. All this has played out in slower sales rates in the traditionally strong autumn selling season. In terms of business and our strategy, I set out our approach at the Investor and Analyst Day in May, and that keen focus on operational excellence and efficiency, I think has positioned us well for the more challenging conditions we see today. We've acted quickly and decisively to mitigate risk. We further increased cost control, introducing a freeze on recruitment, increased management controls around spend and investment. In respect of build and infrastructure work releases specifically, these are being closely managed as we transition build to reflect changes in the sales rate. We will continue to open new outlets while, as I say, managing build and infrastructure prudently because having these outlets open gives us and our customers choices and importantly allows us to flex and respond more quickly to changing market conditions. Looking at sales. Site presentation has been reviewed to ensure an even more positive customer experience with every visit. Mystery shops, in which our teams have a history of scoring very well, have increased. We've also completed refresher training for all of our sales staff to ensure that they're fully equipped for selling in a tougher market. Though anecdotally, I visited a number of sites across the businesses in recent weeks, they look good. Our sales teams are remaining positive about the quality and attractiveness of our homes and sites. We have, and will continue to run the business with the cycle in mind and are monitoring changes in the market and the wider economic environment closely. Moving on to land. As you know, we're in a very strong position here, and so we've had more choices than most. We're confident in the location and quality of our land bank in areas customers want, which is what we and our customers see as primary locations, which gives a greater resilience. It has also allowed us to be very selective with land acquisitions throughout 2022, something we expect to continue given current market conditions. With a strong land position, we've continued to be highly selective, and as a result, year-to-date approvals are around for 7,000 plots, similar to our half year position. Although we are cautious given the current market dynamics, we retain the ability to be opportunistic if it's the right thing to do. The optionality and flexibility provided by our strategic land portfolio will remain, I think, a key differentiator. Driven by our cautious approach to land and tight control on width, we now expect our year-end cash position to be higher at about GBP 800 million. Looking ahead, I do remain confident in the medium to long-term fundamentals of our market and in the strengths and resilience of Taylor Wimpey. While there is clearly a good deal of wider macro uncertainty, we operate from a position of financial strength combined with the strength and positioning of our land bank and our sharp operational focus, we remain confident in our ability to maximize value for our stakeholders. I am confident that we are well-positioned for changing market conditions and should they arise, to take advantage of opportunities. I hope that's been a helpful overview. Thank you for your time, and I think Chris and I will be happy to take your questions now. Thank you. If anyone would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure you are unmuted locally. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. So that's star followed by one to register a question. Our first question today is from Lars Kjellberg from Credit Suisse. Lars, your line is open. Please go ahead. Thank you. I just have two questions. I just wanna start with the land. So we are seeing some pressure, of course, coming on UK house prices. And you talked about a competitive land market. So what are you seeing in terms of price movements in that land market today? And also if you can comment at all on how your valuation of your land bank is looking versus current transaction prices. That's the first question. The second one is, you know, your cash balance is now increasing, and it's good to have GBP 800 million. But what are your thoughts on redeploying that capital? Is that sort of nice to have buffer or do you see or envisage any potential increased shareholder returns? Okay. Thanks, Lars. Those are my questions. Thank you. Thanks. I think, you know, first of all, on the cash balance and deployment, I think it is too early, really, for us to be commenting on that at the moment. On land, you know, I think probably my reflection on land is it does take time for the land market to reset. There is a lag from movements in the market to play out to sort of bidding and sort of offer and negotiation stage. While I think that there's definitely signs of a slowdown in the amount of land coming to the market, I'm not satisfied that prices have fully reset. I would expect it'll take a little bit of time for that to really move its way through. We're taking a very cautious approach at the moment, as I just said, and you know, remaining very cautious. I'd go so far as to say, you know, I'm feeling under no pressure at all. We've got an excellent land position and it's been well bought. To the sort of second point around the valuation in the land bank, you know, I would repeat, it's been well bought. We've been fairly disciplined in the way that we've bring land into our portfolio. I talked, I think in May, at some length around, you know, what I see as the attributes to a quality land bank and sort of split those down. You know, I'm very comfortable that the bank is in good shape from a margin perspective. I think, you know, we reported in half one that the gross margin in the land bank was 25%, so I think that's a good indication of just how robust our land position is. Chris, is there anything you'd like to add? No, I don't think so. I think you covered it all. I mean, you know, Jennie, you know, quite rightly references that, gross margin that we achieved in the first half, and I think that is a pretty good indicator of the order of margin that's embedded in our land bank, you know, approach over the years. Thanks, Lars. All right. Clear. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Aynsley Lammin from Investec. Aynsley, your line is open. Please go ahead. Thanks very much. Morning, everybody. Just a couple of questions from me. Firstly, wondered if you'd comment a bit more on pricing, and what you've seen over the last six weeks. Have you cut prices at all? Is there, you know, what type of, kind of pressure do you see on pricing at the moment? And then secondly, on cladding, just wondered, obviously one of your peers yesterday revised their cladding provision up quite markedly. Wonder if you'd seen any kind of need or risk in change in that, whether it's around build costs or kind of increase in scope. And then a third quick question, just could you just remind us, recall from your capital markets that I think you said the dividend had been stress tested for a 20% fall in house prices and a 30% fall in volume. Just kind of clarify if that was correct. Thanks. Okay. Well, I'll start at the end and work backwards. Maybe, Chris, would you pick up the cladding? Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. Point thing. Stress test that we referenced was, yeah, -20% on price and -30% on volumes, Aynsley. On pricing, look, you know, it's early days, and you know, it's likely that we've got quite a long way to go. You know, we're seeing, I think, customers at their peak level of uncertainty at the moment. We've not seen, you know, any sort of significant movement in price. We're using, you know, incentives and other tools in a controlled and targeted way. Not seeing any movement. It would be hard for us to see that over such a discrete period in any event. Chris, just on cladding. Yeah. You know, we booked a total of GBP 245 million of provisions relating to fire safety and that remains our best estimate of the cost of the works that we're committed to, and it is based on us having already completed works on a number of buildings. Now, due to the complexity and the likely duration of the works, you know, I'm not gonna sit here and say that there's absolutely no chance that the provision would need to increase, at some point in the future. As of today, it is our best estimate. All very clear. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question is from Brijesh Siya from HSBC. Brijesh, your line is open. Please go ahead. Hello, Jennie. Hi, Chris. Yes. I have three, if I may. The first one is on the private reservations rate. Could you please give us the rate since the mini budget. If you could split that into before mini budget and after mini budget. The second one is on the demand side. Could you please give us a little more flavor about across the price range, how that demand is, whether the demand is more kind of resilient in the lower price ranges, and it's more reflective of how people have kind of restrained themselves buying high-valued houses. The third one is on dividend. I appreciate that's been stress tested, but it's still on a 7.5% net asset. One of your competitors had changed that to earnings. Are you kind of looking to change that metrics or any thoughts around it? Yeah. Okay. In terms of the private reservation rate from mini-budget, I think that's week 39 sort of onwards, the rate in the last six weeks is now 0.43%. Sorry, did you hear that, Brijesh? Yeah, I got it. Yeah, on the demand side, just checking that your question was around sort of our price points. You know, I would repeat that, you know, we're in really good locations. We've got a broad mix of offer across all of the price ranges. I think that will make us both agile and responsive to changes in the market. Chris, if I can just pass on to you on the sort of dividend question. Yeah. Yeah, of course. You know, Brijesh we were very clear earlier this year that operating in a cyclical environment means that earnings fluctuate. Basing the ordinary dividend on the net asset position provides an increased degree of certainty for shareholders compared to earnings measures. As Jennie sort of has already noted, you know, we are committed to continue to pay that ordinary dividend throughout the cycle, including through various planning scenarios based on a normal downturn and including a scenario where the average selling price is reduced by 20% and volumes reduced by 30%. Jennie, can I Got you. Jennie, just if I can, check it. The 0.43x in the six weeks, how does that compare with the same period last year? I think that we were. You know, we 0.9. Yeah Yeah We'd have been round about 0.9 at that time. Yeah. Okay. Got that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Chris Millington from Numis. Chris, your line is open. Please go ahead. Morning, Chris. Thank you. Morning, Jennie. Morning, Chris. Yeah, a few as always. Everyone's always got a few. Can I just ask about land commitments for the remainder of this year and 2023? Obviously, there'll be conditional land still coming through, so just a quick comment around that would be helpful. Next one is just really around costs and your ability to manage administration costs if you do see lower volumes. You know, what scope is there to reduce that? Sorry for this last one, but it's got to be asked. How do you see outlets progressing now we've got this slower sales rate? Obviously you've got good openings in the second half, but can you just give us a feel for what way you think the averages are gonna be the next couple of years? I know it's obviously got a few moving parts with the sales rate. You weren't wrong about it being difficult. You know, look, I'll start out with the outlets progressing and I'll ask Chris to take a look at those land commitments while I'm going through them. Look, you know, I've said in my opening, it wouldn't be a comment for me if it didn't include some comment about the frustration in planning it. You know, it really is you know, quite a strong headwind. You know, looking into the future years, a lot of sort of outlet openings going to be a reflection of how resilient the market is and sales rates, and then whether we have appetite to add land through that period or not. There's quite a number of sort of moving parts. You know, in the land bank that we own and control, we're really focused on continuing to bring land forward to outlets. I think the team's done really well, you know, given the current planning environment. You know, in the discussions that we've had right through the business, it's one of their sort of focuses and top priorities to keep that outlet moving. Probably the only other point is to recognize that in a slower sales rate environment, you know, our existing outlets remain open for longer, which, you know, will be an overall benefit to sort of a broader customer offering through that period as well. Just on costs, I mean, we've acted, I think, really quite quickly as a business to, you know, to take action to support the changing environment. You know, we've talked about pulling back on land, that recruitment freeze and, you know, focus on build and plot releases. You know, we're really focused and continue to look for further efficiencies, Chris, to ensure that we're running the business as sustainably as possible. Probably, you know, it's not appropriate to get into, you know, layers of the detail, but, you know, we're a business where there's no sacred cows. You know, we're really quite lean and, you know, we've demonstrated in the past, that, you know, we will make the tough decisions if they become necessary. Yeah. Chris, just on the land commitments and to put it in the context of the cash guidance. Obviously, the guidance for the half year was for year-end net cash of GBP 600 million. We've upgraded that by GBP 200 million to GBP 800 million for the year end. Within that forecast, there is an allowance of round about GBP 800 million of land spend in the year. In the year to date, we've actually spent GBP 660 million on land. That gives you a pretty good sort of view of commitments for the balance of this year. Then sort of looking into next year, obviously, we've got unwind of some land creditors, and I think, you know, that's probably of the order of about, you know, GBP 350 million for 2023. But in addition to that, there will be some, you know, contracts that are currently conditional that may then, you know, get the conditions satisfied. You know, that number would then increase. You know, as of commitments, you know, today, that's the position. Okay. That's helpful, Chris. Just on those commitments, I think could that number be as high as the land credits were unwound or would it be somewhat low? Just trying to get a feel of the proportion there. Yeah, I mean, it'd definitely be lower than the absolute land creditor balance. You'll see if you go back to the half year that there's an aging analysis of that land creditor balance. You know, you got Sorry. Pretty reasonable. Sorry, Chris. I meant versus the GBP 350 million you're talking about unwinding in terms of commitments into 2023, not the whole land creditor balance. Yeah. The GBP 350, the vast majority of that will be land creditor unwind. You know, as things transition from conditional to unconditional, that's when they typically get then recorded in land creditors. So that's why I was trying to give you a sense of, you know, there will be contracts as we, you know, progress through the next sort of couple of months as we get to the year end, where we will inevitably get planning and that may well be a condition that satisfies the contract. Okay. Thanks so much. Thanks, Chris. Thank you. Our next question is from Will Jones from Redburn. Will, your line is open. Please go ahead. Thank you. I'll get a few, if I could please as well. First, just to check in about whether the sales issues are pretty uniform from a regional perspective, just to tie that off please. Just, I guess, more understanding around mortgages. Have you noticed any changes in criteria, or is it really just the issue of rates? Then linked to that, what insight do you have or not on what your customers are paying in a given period? Again, just for our understanding, do they agree their rate pre or post the reservation moment, please, as best you know? Then maybe just to finish, any comment you'd make around the ability to start pushing back on labor and labor rates as volumes start to fall. Thank you. I think in terms of sort of differentials across regions, nothing particularly to flag. I mean, we're still you know, relatively early days, and we're not seeing any sort of meaningful changes in trends. Just to that point on sort of mortgages and criteria, we haven't seen any you know, significant change in criteria that lenders are offering. You know, in our conversations with lenders, they remain you know, committed to lending and to confidence in the UK market. You know, it's the affordability sort of calculators that are sort of playing in at the moment. Just on the mortgage offers pre or post, we run a you know fairly sort of disciplined approach to pre-qualification of our customers prior to them coming in for appointments. The vast majority have you know a mortgage offer in principle or one being processed at the time that they're coming in for reservations. Obviously you know there's been quite a transitional period over you know sort of the last six weeks in particular which has you know made some of those mortgages needed to be sort of reevaluated. Then just finally on the labor point, you know, I think, you know, Chris and I have spoken to sort of all of the MDs in the last couple of weeks, and it's certainly one of the questions that we've been asking them. I'd say tentative or very early signs of some movement in labor. Look, it's still a really busy time out on site and, you know, subcontractors are still really busy. You know, I'd probably have a bit more confidence in looking at some labor rate movements into the new year than I do just at this point in time, Will. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Glynis Johnson from Jefferies. Glynis, your line is open. Please go ahead. Morning. Through FMB, actually I'm gonna steal one that Will usually asks. In terms of the reservations that have been done, particularly in the last couple of weeks or so, what is the proportion that has been done on the sort of new world of mortgage rates? You know, how many are using new mortgage approvals post mini budget? I'd assume given limited availability that you probably have on site, that's quite a large proportion. But if you can help put any color around that would be useful. Second of all, in terms of the incentives that you've talked about, you know, that you're using as tools, you know, since the mini budget, is that to get people over the line, so reservations are already done, potentially even where you may have exchanged just to make sure completions happen? Or is that incentives in terms of new customers coming on site, you know, who may have, you know, higher mortgage price offers? Then lastly, just in terms of the land market, clearly we look at, you know, your land bank as a group, but actually it's made up of a whole number of divisions. I'm just wondering how long you can sort of stay out of the land market. How many of your divisions would you classify as having short land banks, where actually they will need to buy land as you go through 2023? How many of them, you know, can effectively be very flexible in terms of staying away should market conditions continue to not be reflected in the land market? Okay. Thanks for that, Glynis. I think first of all, on the sort of new mortgage world, you know, sort of versus old mortgage world, the relationship for our customers is with their IFA's. Other than anecdotally, you know, what they might talk to the sales team about, you know, I really can't put very much color on that. In those conversations that we've been having with MD's, you know, I think that those customers coming in post the mini budget, who are sort of new to the market or didn't have sort of a mortgage promise in hand, you know, they're obviously sitting in a new reality and, you know, maybe more settled or, you know, at peace with that. You know, I would expect that sort of transitional shift that we're experiencing to play out, you know, relatively quickly now in the market. On the land market and divisions, look, our divisions are sort of multi-business units rather than, you know. I know that some of our peer group would call divisions each operational business. We're in a really good place. You know, land doesn't flow like water, so, you know, it's not universal. You know, I think I used the term earlier, I'm not feeling under any pressure. I'm not feeling under any pressure in any particular business. We're in a good place. On incentives, you know, I think just sort of stepping back and, you know, what are we using incentives for? You know, we are really controlled and quite disciplined around the use of incentives. You know, I think my experience in this kind of environment. When there's an expectation of price movement, it's important that we watch with care and carefully monitor. That's not doing anything. It's just watching. The first thing that we would do is ensure that we've got all the basics right. So, you know, not going straight to incentives, and I've mentioned some of those in my opening site presentation and, you know, sales team training and the like. We've got great sites. They're well-located, and they're in good and resilient markets. You know, we're opening up more outlets as you see. So, you know, I'm very careful that, you know, we're not using incentives in a way that effectively is going to lead the market down. I'm not intending to lead the market down. They're tools, and we'll use them if there's good opportunities for a sustainable sale. Throwing incentives into an uncertain environment's not going to retain sales, and that's not something that I'm or the teams are keen to do. Targeted looking at what a specific sort of objection or concern of a customer and applying them on a sort of plot by plot basis. Look, as we open new sites, I think it's fair to say, you know, dynamics, you know, we will hold our price because we believe in the quality and the resilience of that market. There might be a little bit more flexibility on some older sites. There's a bit of dynamics in there as well. Not using them to get completions over the line would be the summary on that, Glynis. You know, being quite controlled. Incentives are a tool. Can I just come back on the sort of comment about the number of customers who are in the new world, so to speak, in terms of their mortgage offers? What is the availability of your stock? If someone is coming onto site now, can they reserve something which will be delivered within six months of when the mini budget was, so within six months of the start of October? Do you have availability for people to use previous approvals, pre-mini budget approvals, to buy homes on your sites? Yeah. I mean, it is improving. Availability is improving and certainly, you know, we have availability into the first half of next year, so that would fit that criteria. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Glynis. Thank you. Our next question is from Marcus Cole from UBS. Marcus, your line is open. Please go ahead. Hi. Morning, all. Two questions as well. I was just wondering when you're running your stress test exercise, what sort of level of house price decline would be needed to start seeing some land impairments? The second one is on the SAP software. It seems to be working now. I just wondered, now you're using it, have you got an updated cost assumption for part L now? Thank you. Okay. I'll take the SAP and Yeah. Pass the stress test to you. Good. The SAP software is up and running. Great. You know, the assumptions that I think I mentioned in the summer that we were making on the basis of, you know, our assessments on technical spec are solid. I think that we're in a good place from L&F and haven't had to modify any of our assumptions. Chris, just on that stress test. Yeah. I mean, Marcus, I'm gonna go back to, you know, we reported gross margin of 25% in the first half. On that basis, you can see we have a pretty significant degree of protection against the need to be making NRV provisions. You know, when I last did the exercise, which would have been around the half year, there was only, you know, around about 5% of our plots that had gross margins of less than 20%. Thank you. Thanks, Marcus. Thank you. Our next question is from Harry Goad from Berenberg. Harry, your line is open. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, Chris and Jennie. Morning, Harry. Morning. Question from me, please, is can you talk a little bit about how you think about sort of almost tactics of trading in the next six months or so and how you, when you're talking to your business units, how you're prioritizing the sort of trade-off between, I guess, volume, sales rates, profits, you know, what are the key metrics that you're targeting? Maybe within that, you know, is there a sales rate below which you're just unwilling to fall? Then the supplementary to that is, in that context, how do you think about alternative or possible alternative sales channels next year with regard to bulk sales, sort of PRS deals, maybe more with HAs? Just anything around that would be interesting. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Harry. Look, you know, I think I mentioned the word iterative earlier. You know, it is an iterative process around sales rate. You know, we are working with all of our teams to you know, sort of assess the resilience of our business and, you know, they are obviously undertaking various modeling. It is difficult to say, you know, what an acceptable sales rate is. You know, if you look back through history, there has been quite a range, you know, over the last 15 years, you know, quite a range. You know, we size our business and our sort of build expectations. You know, on a side-by-side basis. You'll apparently say that, you know, we're working, you know, with our teams on our WIP and cost control on sites now to, you know, transition our build to reflect sales rates. It really is a balance of all those three that you mentioned. You know, volume, sales rate, and profit. You know, to drive a sales rate where, you know, you're really taking sort of lumps out of profits, you know, not a good approach, but we want to try and find a sustainable volume on which to run the business. an iterative process that we'll, you know, continue to work on, and no doubt we'll talk about more as we get to the prelims next year. On alternative sales channels. You know, I think it's a really good question. We haven't needed to really use bulk sales in recent years. You know, but we do have established relationships with a number of the institutions. It's fair to say that they, you know, they're not immune to sort of the erratic behavior in the markets. You know, any of them that are sort of debt facing, you know, have been cooling their heels, so to speak, in recent weeks also. It's certainly something that we're all very open-minded about. You know, we'll take it on a site-by-site, case-by-case basis. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question is from Charlie Campbell from Liberum. Charlie, please go ahead. Your line is open. Yeah. Morning. Couple from me, please. Just wonder if you could help us to split the order book between private and social. Would be really helpful. I realize this might be kind of fall under the category of customers and IFA's, but just wondering if you're hearing from them about people taking longer mortgages, so you know, switching to 25 to 35 and 40s, or even to variable rate mortgages to kind of you know, find ways of mitigating the affordability challenge. Thank you very much. Okay. I'll take the last one I think while Chris gets the number on the split for you. I mean, as you noted, we don't have direct relationships, so you know, this is anecdotal. We have heard from some customers extending their mortgages. I have to say not in the 35 to 40 range in my hearing, Charlie, but certainly you know, 30 years is something that we've seen some customers use. In terms of variable rate, you know, look, that's an individual customer choice, you know, based on their own sort of personal circumstances. It's an option, you know, with the way that the mortgage market is at the moment and, you know, we are hearing of some customers choosing to take variable in order to let that market settle. Yeah. Charlie, on order book split, the private units in the order book are 5,005, and the affordable are 4,148. Hopefully, I've got my math right to add up to the number that's in the statement. Very good. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Clyde Lewis from Peel Hunt. Clyde, your line is open. Please go ahead. Morning, Jennie. Morning, Chris. Morning, Clyde. I think I've still got three, if I may. One on obviously your comments around sort of planning ahead and sort of managing the infrastructure work and new sites and the cash that goes into there, but how does that tie in with obviously the extra costs from part L, part F, part L in particular? You know, and where you are, I suppose, in your thoughts about putting down foundations in particular ahead of sort of June next year. That was the first one. The second one was on land hurdle rates stroke factoring in, I suppose, softer pricing going forward, again, appreciate your comments around you backed away from the land market. But traditionally, obviously, you've used current prices and current costs to look at hurdle rates. Are you getting to a point where, given the risks, you know, potentially of sort of softer selling prices over the next 12, 18 months, are you starting to factor that into maybe higher hurdle rates or sort of a different calculation when it comes to looking at the gross margins that you're trying to get? The last one was around your comment about customer visits to the website continuing to be at good levels. I mean, it'd be interesting to hear a little bit about that, particularly in the last six weeks. Did that drop very sharply and then has recovered? And also not just website, but maybe sort of sales appointments as well, and whether you sort of track that and how that pattern has evolved. Okay. I mean, look, I think it's actually a really good question on part L and F. You know, if we haven't sort of been going through the market dynamic that we're now seeing, you know, the likelihood is that there'd be a lot of businesses sort of across the sector looking to get their foundations in. We're you know, sort of well advanced in our foundations for 2023, as you would expect, at this point in heading into the winter. I think now we need, we do need to balance that around, you know, is it good work in progress? Is it sustainable? You know, on a slower sales rate assessment. You know, how long would it take you to get to that foundation, and therefore, is it a good quality investment? You know, foundations, where do you go in on their own? There's other WIP's, sort of roads and infrastructure that goes with them. You know, we're taking sort of a reassessment on that and ensuring that we're investing in good quality and sustainable WIP. I'm balancing that against whether there's a benefit or a disbenefit on the part L and part F. On land hurdle rates, you know, I think, you know, in the current climate, you've heard me, and I've repeated it, you know, that we're cautious in the market, not feeling under any pressure. On a purely academic basis, Clyde, you've got to start an appraisal from somewhere. You know, current price, current cost is still going to be where you start. You put in, as we've been doing, you know, for a couple of years now, visible future costs, like part L and F for future home standards. You'd apply a really good dollop of, you know, current market, not necessarily reflecting outlook, downside scenarios, and you'd really stress test that. You know, that's on the basis that you want to do that, and that you feel that you have to. There might be good opportunity. Usually, they stand out a mile. You know, whether it's quality of location or the quality of the price or a combination of all of them. I'm you know not gonna get too twisted around sort of hurdle rates, and it always tends to imply then if that's a low bar. I'd be setting a very high bar in the current climate. Then customer visits to the website. You know, we have seen good levels. I'd absolutely flag for you that you know some of that is now driven by more paid sort of advertising and media than we've seen in the past. We did talk about increasing our sort of media spend at the half year. But there's good levels of interest. You know, some of those early conversations with our sales teams, you know, show that customers are still really interested in new homes. If not converting to appointments, and we're seeing appointments, you know, continue to fall. The conversion rate then from those visitors also increase. You can see that then playing out in how the sales rate has moved and how quickly it's moved. Perfect. Does that help? Thank you. Yeah, no, very. Would there have been an improving or a deteriorating trend? I mean, obviously mini budget and probably the two weeks after that I suspect was probably the worst moment in terms of that sort of activity. Have you seen it pick up at all? Yeah. Has it continued to fall? No, I mean, it has been on a downward trend since the mini budget. You know, I'd also say, look, we're now in the second week of November, and you know, we would traditionally expect to see a appointment requests starting to. Yeah. Slower or, you know, slow quite meaningfully. Look, I'm not trying to sort of make it opaque, but we're in the time of year that we'd expect to go slow in any event. Yes. Yeah. Appointments are trending downward. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Jon Bell from Deutsche Bank. Jon, your line is open. Please go ahead. Yeah, morning. I think I've got three. Jennie, you mentioned the Barclays mortgage rate cut from last week, which is helpful, but it still leaves their rate very high relative to swaps. I just wonder what noises you hear when you have your discussions with the lenders about their appetite and any future mortgage rate changes that we might have coming down the pipe. The second one is a follow-up to a previous question. Apologies, it's on the dividend. Just to clarify, you're happy for your dividends to be uncovered if they need to be, should profitability fall materially over the next year or two? The third one is on pricing discipline. You've outlined your position very clearly. What do you see around you? Anyone breaking rank? 'Cause obviously that can have a knock-on effect. Thank you. Okay. I think on that, you know, mortgage rates still high relatively to swaps, yes. You know, in our conversation with lenders, and you know, again, sort of anecdotally, we are expecting rates to start coming in. Just how quickly that happens, you know, I'm unclear about, but that's certainly the intent and the nature of the conversations that we're having with lenders. You know, I remain hopeful that there'll be, you know, continuing stabilization of rates and maybe a little bit of good news for customers in coming weeks. On pricing discipline, you know, as I said, you know, I think in my experience, a good position is to watch and monitor. In the end, you know, we need to watch what's happening around us. I'm not necessarily gonna call out, you know, any particular competitor, but you know, we can see that incentives are becoming an increasing part of sort of the dialogue and, you know, you can see that in advertising across some parts of the sector. The use of part exchange, you know, starting to increase. We'll be responsive to market changes. You know, we're not going to defy gravity. We'll, you know, look to the market around us, as I say, you know, I don't feel the need to lead the market there, and the use of incentives in a controlled way remains, you know, remains our position at this point. Chris, just on that dividend question. Yeah. I think, Jon, you probably know the answer because, you know, if we take the scenario that I mentioned sort of earlier on the call, where average selling price is reduced by 20%, and we're currently operating at a 20% operating margin, then by default, that would mean that the ordinary dividend wouldn't be uncovered. You know, what we say is that, you know, we're basing our commitment on a normal downturn, and in any sort of normal downturn, you would expect to see a recovery as well. It's not that that scenario stays at 20% down and 30% down on volume for perpetuity. Yeah, I think that, you know, you can work the numbers through the spreadsheet as well as I can. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thanks, Jon. Thank you. Our final question today comes from Ami Galla from Citigroup. Ami, your line is open. Please go ahead. Thank you. Just one question from me, one on the social order book. I'm wondering if you can give us some color in terms of the response that you've had from housing associations on the back of the sort of higher mortgage rates and downturn in the market that we've seen so far. How has their appetite for future volumes changed? The second is, I mean, connected to that, the social order book that sits here, is that bulk of that for delivery into 2023? Okay, maybe, Chris, if you could just pick up the order book question. Just in terms of housing associations, I mean, we've got very long-established relationships, Ami, with housing associations and any anything reflected in our order book is contracted. So that's, you know, that's fully secured. Appetite-wise, actually, you know, I'd probably say there's quite a diversity out there. There are some housing associations, you know, particularly those who have issues that they need to address around fire safety, or those looking at, you know, with older stock to invest in sort of environmental and energy improvements are, you know, being sort of a little bit more cautious and less visible in the market. We remain or we continue to see, you know, a significant number of housing associations active and looking to contract and to negotiate deals with our teams. Yeah. I think your question was, you know, does the bulk of the order book for affordable unwind, you know, next year and beyond? The answer is yes. Thank you. Thanks, Ami. Thank you. This is all the questions we have today, so I'll hand back over to Jennie for any closing remarks. Well, thank you everyone for joining us this morning. Hopefully it's been a useful Q&A as well. Look forward to seeing you in the new year. Thank you, Daisy.