Housebuilder Taylor Woodrow says the recent cooling in the UK property market had left annual profits towards the bottom end of City hopes.

The group, which sells homes under the Bryant brand, said today it still expects to post record results for the year, but said the final figure for 2004 was likely to be closer to £387.5m, rather than the top of market forecasts at £411.3m.

It said that while completions in the UK for 2004 were up 18 per cent on the previous year at 9,053, the performance was below previous expectations because of continuing uncertainty over house prices and caution among home buyers.

Today's update comes less than three months after Woodrow blamed "continuing negative media speculation" for sales being short of the 10,000 originally hoped for. At that time, analysts had been looking for profits of £440 million.

Woodrow said today: "As we noted in October, customers are taking longer to commit than earlier in the year."

The company, which acquired Wilson Connolly last year, said visitor levels had fallen by around 10 per cent in the second half of the year, although improved levels in the last six weeks suggested consumers remained interested in new homes.