Savills Expand New Homes Division

Savills has expanded its new homes division in response to increased activity in the market.  The appointments of Associate, Stephanie Patterson and Senior Sales Negotiator, Lyndsey Boland, now puts the number of people working for the team at 8 – making it one of Ireland’s largest specialist new homes divisions once again.

Stephanie Patterson returns to Savills after 5 years in the UK working with London based agents, Chestertons, in their international residential homes division. Prior to this, Stephanie worked with Savills for more than 8 years in both their international and then property management divisions.

Lyndsey Boland joined Savills in 2012 and worked as a Senior Property Manager in its lettings division before joining the new homes team last month.  She has extensive experience in the letting and property management of multi-unit developments of apartments and houses. Meanwhile Linda Forsyth has been promoted to Head of Operations within the division.

The value of Savills new home sales in 2015 equated to €100m – the highest since the economic downturn – and they expect this number to rise substantially in 2016.

New data reveals that enquiries to its new homes department increased by 225% in January compared with the same month last year. Moreover, when analysing the availability of finance from potential purchasers, Savills revealed that the combined amount topped €500m – this is compared to a total of €2 billion in 2015.

David Browne, New Homes Director at Savills Ireland, says the significant increase is due in part to the variety of product they are preparing for launch – from high-end Dublin apartments to housing stock in  the suburbs and Greater Dublin Area. However he warned that supply is still far below where it needs to be;

“Last year, the sale of just over 2,000 new homes completed in Dublin.  However, over 30% of those were sold as part of multi-family investment sales, bringing the actual figure closer to just 1,400 units.   As has been well documented, there is a requirement for 12,000 new units to be delivered per annum in Dublin alone, so we are still a long way off yet.”

Commenting on the pipeline of new homes expected to come to market this year, Mr Browne said;

“We have seen a significant uplift in product which is either ready to come to the market this spring, or being prepared for launch in the autumn.  The majority of new homes we sold last year were traditional houses and we expect a similar trend this year.”