If interest rates continue to rise, a housebuilding company has warned that the housing market may experience further slowdown.
The end of the Help to Buy program and rising borrowing costs, according to Crest Nicholson, are making it difficult for prospective first-time buyers.
The business requested that more assistance be given to prospective homeowners by the government.
It made these remarks as it disclosed a decline in revenues and profits for the six months ending in April.
The fallout from last year's mini-budget in September, when mortgage rates spiked and lenders yanked hundreds of deals, Crest Nicholson claimed, had a negative impact on trading during this time.
According to the report, this resulted in "rapidly falling consumer confidence" which "immediately translated into softer demand in the housing market.".
Revenues for the six-month period decreased to £282.7m, down 22.4 percent from the prior year, while pre-tax profits fell by 60% to £20.9m.
Despite the slow start, the builder claimed that consumer confidence had begun to rise.
However, it claimed that some first-time buyers were being prevented from obtaining housing due to higher mortgage rates and the end of Help to Buy.
"If interest rates rise further and stay high for an extended period of time, this will undoubtedly exacerbate the problem even more and start to impact demand and confidence again," the report warned.
"We keep urging the government to recognize this difficulty and extend additional assistance to these potential homebuyers. ".
The government of England offered loans for up to 20% of newly constructed homes' value (or 40% in London) under the Help to Buy program. But in October of last year, this was closed to fresh applications.
The Halifax reported its first annual decline in home prices in 11 years earlier this week, and it also claimed that higher mortgage rates were undermining confidence.
Lenders' expectations that the Bank of England will increase rates from their current 4 point 5 percent to as high as 5 point 5 percent have caused borrowing costs to increase over the past few weeks.
The increases are anticipated because the inflation rate—the rate at which prices rise—remains stubbornly high.
