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Back in July, with house sales starting to pick up and prices beginning to move, I took a hindsight look at a number of companies that are related to the housing industry. Now, at the end of the year, house prices are firmly booming again, and I'm also in the process of selling my flat, so I thought it might be interesting to take it up where I left off and see how the companies I looked at then have fared since. Has the rising housing market taken these companies further along with it, or has the shine been taken off "boring" sectors as people sell everything to buy into multi-billion pound online corner shops?
Travis Perkins (LSE: TPK), was the first I looked at back then. The company is in the business of distribution and sales of timber and plumbing materials to the building trade, and the hiring of tools. We should expect to see the company's fortunes driven more by the building of new housing perhaps, than by any rise in the prices of existing houses. And what we see is a share price that has fallen back quite a bit since July. From a high point of nearly £8 then, to around £6.60 these days, it went into quite a slump after July and started picking itself up in November, having fallen to under £5.50. Still, it's up over 50% on the year, and that's not bad.
Caradon (LSE: CRN) had also performed well by the end of July, up about 50% from around £1 at the start of the year. Supplying plumbing products and materials for the building and home improvements markets, with their main sales being of plumbing and electrical supplies, we might expect to see business doing well in the latter half of the year. Back then I said "And when you've just bought that new house, you simply have to replace that horrid bathroom suite, don't you? I know I hate mine, I just haven't got round to doing anything about it yet." Well, I still haven't done anything about it and I'm moving on now, so maybe the next owners will sling some money in Caradon's direction instead. And Caradon's fortunes? A similar pattern. They rose a bit higher and then slid back all the way to November before picking up a bit to around 60% up on the year so far.
Allen (LSE: AEN), past Germinator, and the only company in the sector that this Fool has shares in, is geared towards the house building market too, but has fingers in several pies in the sector. From a peak of around 360p in September, Allen's share price has slid all the way back to the level it started off the year, around the 290p mark. As Fools, we always caution people to do their own research and never buy shares just because someone with "TMF" in their name has bought some. Having picked the worst performer of the shares I have looked at so far, with a return of around zero, there's little danger of anyone following me.
Furniture, fittings, carpets, wallpaper, paint. Those are things that people who move house buy tons of. I didn't look at any carpet companies back in July, but I did consider a couple of furniture retailers. DFS Furniture (LSE: DFS) wasn't doing badly at the time, having recovered a lot of its earlier fall, and is still going strong. Hovering around the 350p mark now, the shares have gained over 80% this year. I bought some of their furniture too last year; shame I didn't buy any shares. And even those makers of fall-apart furniture MFI (LSE: MFI), have beaten my own selection, and are up 28% on the year.
With a fine summer of Alan Titchmarsh and his crew behind us, how have those gardening companies I looked at finished off the year? Wyevale Garden Centres (LSE: WGC) shares have remained strong and are up 45% on the year, while wonderfully named Dobbies Garden Centres (LSE: DGC), up 60% on the year to July, has stayed pretty static since, for a healthy year over all.
So it looks like housing-related businesses have held up well in the face of recent investing fashion (with the exception of anything that I buy). Sympathy please, over on the Fool's Eye View message board.
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