How to Buy Berkeley Shares UK

Housebuilder and property developer Berkeley Group has built over 19,000 new homes in the last five years and supported 27,000+ jobs directly and across its supply chain, specialising in projects across London, Birmingham, and the south of England. Berkeley shares are worth looking at if you want exposure to the UK’s housebuilding industry.

In my guide below, I’ll explain how you can buy, sell, and trade Berkeley shares in the UK today.

Also consider: My best stocks and shares to buy now

Berkeley Group (BKG) share price

Below you can see Berkeley Group share price live, subject to stock exchange times and data update frequency.

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6 Simple Steps to Buying Berkeley (BKG) shares

There are six steps you need to follow if you want to buy or sell Berkeley shares. Each step is as important as the next, so make sure you take note of what to do at each stage of your journey with this company.

1. Find a trading platform that works for you

Trading platforms licensed and regulated in the UK give Brits the flexibility to buy, sell, and trade assets like stocks, CFDs, forex, and mutual funds. However, they all have their pros and cons. Take some time to review the leading operators. Make a note of their features and find out how easy their platforms are to use and the quality of their customer support.

Don’t forget to look at the fees involved with managing your new trading account. Some platforms will charge a commission for every transaction you place through their software. Others will also charge management fees for holding your account. Some may even charge inactivity fees if you don’t log in and use your account for a set period.

When picking your first trading platform, always ensure it is fully regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This means the investment platform must abide by the FCA’s strict compliance standards.

It also means the funds you invest are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). The FSCS protects the first £85,000 you invest, compensating you up to this amount should your trading broker cease trading.

2. Get your trading account up and running

Choosing the most suitable trading account is equally as important as picking the right broker. If you’re new to all this investing and trading malarky, I’ll explain the different accounts on offer, along with their pros and cons:

Tax wrapper accounts

If you choose a stocks and shares ISA or a self-invested personal pension (SIPP), you can protect any returns on your investments from tax. Dividend income on shares within Stocks and Shares ISAs and SIPPs are tax-free. Meanwhile, profits on buying and selling shares within these accounts are also free of capital gains tax – hence the informal nickname of ‘tax wrapper’ for these types of accounts.

The one fly in the ointment of a Stocks and Shares ISA is that you can only invest up to £20,000 in a single tax year. If you have a substantial five or even six-figure sum to invest, you may prefer to open a general investment account which allows you to invest a limitless sum each tax year into financial assets like Berkeley Group.

Share dealing accounts

Are you planning on actively buying and selling equities like Berkeley regularly? If you’re thinking of becoming a retail day trader and trading the price volatility on selected assets, a share dealing account could be a credible option.

Their fee structures are some of the most competitive in the industry. Some even offer commission-free trading. That said, commission-free brokers counterbalance this by offering a bigger spread which means their prices may not be as competitive as other brokers.

CFD and spread betting accounts

If you aren’t fussed about holding shares in companies like Berkeley Group as a long-term investment, you might prefer to speculate on the price of the underlying assets instead.

Contract for difference (CFD) trading and spread betting accounts allow you to trade or bet on whether the price of Berkeley shares will rise or fall.

With these accounts, it’s possible to profit on trades even if the Berkeley Group share price falls. By short-selling assets you pick a price to enter, and your profit or loss is determined by how much it moves in your favour. If it falls below your entry price, you’ll make a profit. If it moves above your entry price, you’ll make a loss.

3. Ensure your broker supports your preferred payment method

Double- and triple-check the trading broker you choose supports the payment method you want to use to deposit and withdraw funds from your trading account.

The most common payment methods are debit cards and bank transfers, although a growing number of brokers are starting to allow the use of mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. This can be useful if you’d like to keep your bank account one step removed from your trading activities.

I also want to talk about credit cards. I’m pleased to see that a growing number of UK brokers are phasing out the use of credit cards for depositing funds into trading accounts. No one should consider borrowing money to trade or invest in the financial markets, particularly as there’s no guarantee of making a profit.

4. Locate Berkeley shares within your trading platform

Once your trading account is funded and active, you’re ready to find information about the Berkeley Group share price. Head over to the search bar within your trading software. This is usually located at the top of the page or in the top right-hand corner of your trading software. Once you’ve found it, type in the company’s ticker into the search bar.

Tickers are also known as Exchange Price Information Codes (EPICs). The Berkeley Group EPIC is BKG. The relevant page should appear, showing the current stock price of Berkeley and its recent price history.

5. Monitor the latest developments on Berkeley Group

If you’re keen to keep tabs on the current and past performance of Berkeley Group Holdings plc, you should choose a trading platform that offers features that help you to carry out technical and fundamental analysis. Trading charts and indicators can be useful for technical analysis, plotting price points for support and resistance in the market.

Meanwhile real-time news feeds, providing the housebuilder’s latest trading updates and press releases, are handy for determining the likelihood for bullish (positive) or bearish (negative) sentiment on the stock.

6. Place your order for Berkeley shares

If the price of Berkeley Group stock has reached a level you’re prepared to invest in, you can submit an order with your broker. There are two types of orders you’ll want to consider – market orders and limit orders.

Market orders effectively tell your broker to buy the number of shares requested at the best available price. Limit orders tell your broker the price you want to pay for Berkeley shares. If the price hasn’t reached this level yet, the order will sit active in the market until it’s triggered.

When you are trading the share price of Berkeley Group, I’d always endorse the use of risk management techniques to preserve your capital. Stop-loss and take-profit orders are two of the most common methods.

Stop-loss orders make it possible to set a maximum loss on any trade you place. Meanwhile, take-profit orders will close your position in the market once you reach a set profit target. This helps to remove the emotion from your investments, focusing solely on finding a balance between risk and reward.

How much does it cost to buy Berkeley shares?

The Berkeley share price is down almost 13% in the last five years. It had reached all-time highs of 5,923.12 (GBX) in February 2020 before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown restrictions. By March 20, 2020, the Berkeley share price had plunged to 3,676.23 (GBX), effectively losing all its 2019 gains.

In 2021, when Covid-19 lockdown restrictions began to ease for good, pent-up demand for property meant that average house prices across the UK soared at the fastest rate in 15 years. By the end of 2021, house prices were worth 16% more than before the pandemic reared its ugly head in Q1 2020.

It was worth providing this context because the Berkeley share price followed suit in 2021, bouncing back from their March 2020 lows to highs of 5,351.38 (GBX) in August 2021.

The rapid emergence of inflation, eating into operating overheads for major UK housebuilders like Berkeley Group, then posed a serious threat to the Berkeley share price. The war in Ukraine and the knock-on effect of soaring commodities prices has made life very difficult for the UK’s housebuilding industry.

By June 2022, when Berkeley Group Holdings plc posted its full-year results for 2021-22, earnings per share were up 23% and shareholders had seen a return on equity of 17.5%. Even at this point, inflation had risen to over 9%, a 40-year high, which was weighing heavily on investor sentiment. With continued interest rate hikes from the Bank of England, it was no surprise to see Berkeley Group shares fall even further than its March 2020 lows to 3,165.00 (GBX) in September 2022.

Had you invested in shares in Berkeley Group Holdings plc since its initial public offering in 1988, you would be sitting on a return on investment worth over 5,000%. However, as you can see, it has been a rather turbulent time for Berkeley Group shares in the last five years.

What has the Berkeley share price been like in 2023?

Initial projections that UK inflation would be transitory meant that interest rate forecasts factored cuts into the equation by the end of 2023 and beyond. However, the reality of continued inflation and its second-round effects have stunted the recovery of Berkeley shares.

In 2023 so far, the Berkeley share price is up a shade over 3%, but this was almost 16% before early May when sticky core inflation data began to suggest that interest rates could go further. The Berkeley share price has since been trending between a range of 4,000.00 (GBX) and 4,100.00 (GBX).

This year, its forward price-to-earnings ratio is said to be 10.5x. The average price-to-earnings ratio in the FTSE 100 is approximately 13.88x, so its immediate-term threats are seemingly priced in. Its current market capitalisation is said to be approximately £4.29 billion.

Does Berkeley pay dividends?

The Berkeley Group has been a steady payer of dividends to its shareholders in the last decade. Even during 2021, when the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic were at their height, Berkeley still paid a minor 0.19% dividend yield in February 2021. The housebuilder softened the blow of this modest yield by forging ahead with its share buyback scheme which added a buyback yield to shareholders worth 3.48% in 2021.

Looking further back, the dividend yield to shareholders hit highs of 7.26% in 2014, followed by 5.15% and 7.12% dividend yields in 2015 and 2016 respectively. In 2017 and 2018, dividend yields began to dry up at 3.26% and 1.16%. It was even lower still in 2019 at just 0.56%.

In 2020, as the shock of the Covid-19 pandemic took hold, Berkeley Group opted to reward shareholders for their loyalty by handing out a dividend yield worth 4.35%.

This year, the Berkeley Group dividend yield is set to be worth a total of 2.16%, which is no mean feat given that the UK housing market is on something of a knife edge due to inflation and rising mortgage rates.

Before 2018, Berkeley Group would have been a credible option for those looking to invest purely for consistent dividends. However, this has not been the case since, falling below the average dividend yield on the FTSE 100 index – containing the 100 most valuable companies on the London Stock Exchange – which sits at around 3.61%.

What’s the best way to buy or invest in Berkeley shares?

If you’re bullish on the prospects for Berkeley Group Holdings plc, either as a short-term trade or a long-term investment, there are multiple ways to get exposure to Berkeley shares.

You can choose a share dealing broker that will process the buying and selling of shares for you. These brokers are a necessity in many ways to help you buy Berkeley Group stock directly from the London Stock Exchange. Their digital platforms make it easy to track the share price of available assets and submit market orders and limit orders at the touch of a button.

If you want to buy and hold Berkeley shares as an investment for the future, you could consider adding them to a Stocks and Shares ISA or SIPP to avoid paying tax on capital gains, income tax, or dividend tax on any profits over time.

There are two types of Stocks and Shares ISAs and SIPPs – you can either pay for your investments and overall fund to be managed by a team of experts or go down the do-it-yourself (DIY) route and pick the assets you want to buy and sell.

If you’re only interested in whether the share price in Berkeley Group Holdings plc rises or falls, you could trade the value of this stock without having to physically own shares. CFD brokers make it possible to take long (buy) and short (sell) positions on underlying assets like Berkeley Group. If you feel the company’s downside risks outweigh its upside potential, you could short the stock and still make a profit if it does decline as predicted.

Why you should be ultra careful with CFD trading

Just be mindful that CFD trading is a risky business. As many as 70% of retail investor accounts trading CFDs lose money. CFDs allow you to trade using leverage, depositing only a fraction of the true value of your trade to get started. This can magnify potential profits, but it can also accelerate losses without sufficient risk management.

Ultimately, the best way for you to buy Berkeley Group shares depends on whether you’re investing in or trading its market value.

Our top picks for where to buy Berkeley Group shares

eToro

As share dealing brokers go, I’d say eToro is up there with the best. You can acquire Berkeley shares with 0% commission here, although your profits will incur capital gains tax as there’s no ISA or SIPP account option. eToro is also renowned for its copy trading service, which is often of interest to beginners.

interactive investor

In my opinion, the interactive investor trading portal is one of the most intuitive in the industry. It’s also a credible option for DIY investors, with the option to hand-pick investments – like Berkeley Group Holdings plc – to put into an ISA or SIPP. In total, you’ll have over 40,000 financial instruments at your fingertips here.

How to buy Berkeley shares FAQs