Bovis Homes sees full-year profit slightly above market view

(Reuters) - British builder Bovis Homes Group said on Wednesday it expects full-year profit to be ahead of the market consensus, as it sold more private and affordable homes and benefited from slightly higher average selling prices.

The company's upbeat forecast counters an overall sluggish British housing market that has slowed since 2016 with people shying away from buying homes due to smaller household incomes and Brexit jitters keeping foreign investors on the sidelines.

Bovis reiterated that Brexit uncertainty led to a slowdown in discretionary buyers of its larger homes.

The number of new homes delivered during the year by the property firm was in-line with expectations, rising 3 percent to 3,759 units while the average selling price was up 0.2 percent to about 273,000 pounds.

The company expects this momentum to continue into the upcoming fiscal year and said performance so far in 2019 has been "encouraging".

(Reporting by Tanishaa Nadkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier, Bernard Orr)