Last checked at 
By Sarah Young
LONDON, June 27 (Reuters) - UK housebuilders have lost asmuch as 40 percent of their value since Britain voted to leavethe EU, as the threat of recession erased their standing as safehaven stocks.
About 8 billion pounds ($10.5 billion) has been wiped offthe market capitalisation of the country's four biggesthousebuilders, Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon, Barratt and Berkeley, since the result of Thursday'sreferendum.
"You've gone from certainty and clarity and confidence to acomplete lack of," Shore Capital analyst Robin Hardy said.
Those housebuilders have over the last five years reportedsteady profit growth and rewarded investors with higher payoutsafter recovering from the 2008 financial crash. They had saidthere was more growth to come.
But uncertainty about the outcome had already started tosend shudders through the sector ahead of the vote, withBerkeley warning earlier in June that there had been a 20percent drop in reservations of new homes.
Top economists say a recession is now on the cards,prompting fears of higher unemployment, falling consumerconfidence and as a result, lower housing demand and a questionmark over housebuilders' future profitability.
"You're going to have masses of different opinions aboutwhat's going to happen to transaction levels, what's going tohappen to pricing, what's going to happen to costs, what's goingto happen to mortgage lending, what's going to happen topolicy," Hardy said.
Canaccord analyst Aynsley Lammin said that there was a riskto his consensus forecasts for the housebuilders, but noted thatthe sector was in a strong position to withstand any downturn.
"They haven't got a huge amount of debt, most of them havegot net cash and they've been very disciplined, so I thinkthere's some valuation support at some point," he said.
Extending losses from Friday, shares in Barratt were down 19percent at 1140 GMT on Monday, while Taylor Wimpey lost 17percent, Persimmon was down the same and Berkeley was off 13percent.
Building supplies firm Travis Perkins was trading 15 percentlower, while housebuilders on the midcap index, Redrow, Bovisand Bellway were down 20 percent, 16 percent and 17 percentrespectively.
Also weighing on the housebuilders' outlook will be awarning issued by British Finance Minister George Osborne in Maythat should the UK vote to leave the EU, British house priceswould fall 10 to 18 percent.
The Leave campaign had sought to play down some Brexitwarnings calling them part of a "project fear" campaign, butshould those warnings turn out to be correct, they could almostwipe out the housebuilders' margins.
Taylor Wimpey, for example, reported an operating profitmargin of 20.3 percent in its last financial year.($1 = 0.7595 pounds) (Editing by Anna Willard)
