Chief Executive of Persimmon, Mike Farley believes that their return to paying a dividend confirmed the underlying strength of the business.

He also asserted that if the market situation did not fluctuate, then they could think of more land write-backs. Having reported an improvement in first-half trading Persimmon, the York-based housebuilder is to make a comeback after a gap of almost 2 years.

Paying a temporary dividend of 3p per share, its pre-tax profits last time were posted to be £9.8m, while this time it has seen a drastic improvement and in the first half it reportedly reached £101.4m. This rate is said to have been achieved on a 27pc rise in revenue to £776.6m.

The housebuilding industry, he said had endured the hard times and now with an improvement in profit margins, strong forward sales and falling cancellation rates was sure to do good in future.

“It has been a tough two years and, while there is still a lot of caution out there in the market, it feels like we are coming out the other side”, he added.

Persimmon has signaled that its full-year dividend, which in general accounts to 40-60 split between the first and second half of the year, this time might come up to be about 8p.