Lagan Homes pays more than €16m for south Dublin residential lands

Lagan Homes looks set to ramp up its construction of new homes in the Republic following its purchase for more than €16 million of a large residential land holding in Ballycullen, Dublin 16.

The 10.41-hectare (25.72-acre) site at Woodtown is zoned ‘Objective RES-N’ under the South Dublin Development Plan 2022-2028 and will give the Belfast-headquartered housebuilder the capacity to deliver over 500 units. In 2023, the company completed 219 new homes in the Republic while its existing land bank has scope for the provision of 1,250 homes. A part of the Lagan Group, which is owned by Kevin Lagan, Lagan Homes currently completes more than over 600 new homes annually between Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and England.

Commenting on the completion of the deal, Brian Carey of Sherry FitzGerald Commercial said: “This sale represents one of the more significant land transactions in the last year and we look forward to seeing this scheme progress in the coming years.

“With strong interest from numerous parties, the sale achieved in excess of the €16m guide, which was unsurprising given the quality of the lands and the continued shortfall in our housing supply. The acquisition by Lagan Homes represents an exciting opportunity of scale to develop a new residential development of mixed unit types in a sought-after south Dublin location.

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Chris Carroll, managing director of Lagan Homes Ireland, said” We look forward to working with our professional team led internally by our head of design and planning, John Begley, along with John Geoghegan, head of business development. I would like to thank them and our external consultants for making this transaction come to fruition and to thank Sherry FitzGerald as vendor’s agent for their professionalism throughout”.

The sale of the Woodtown site comes against the backdrop of some €204 million in development land sales transacted in the first quarter of this year in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) and regional centres of Cork, Galway and Limerick. This included the €152 million sale of the former Jury’s hotel site in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 to the US government for the development of its new embassy. A total of 20 transactions closed during the three-month period according to the latest quarterly report on the development land market by Sherry FitzGerald Commercial. While this is greater than the 16 transactions recorded for the same period in 2022, it remains well below the long-term quarterly average of 31.

An analysis of transactions by lot size reveals that the majority, 80 per cent, were less than €5 million in value. Notably, 30 per cent were in the €500,000 to €1 million price category, the largest proportion seen in this cohort since the second quarter of 2020. Apart from the former Jury’s site, there were no transactions in excess of €15 million in value.

Commenting on the latest quarterly figures, Jean Behan, senior economist at Sherry FitzGerald Research said: “Although the first quarter of the year did see an increase in the value of development land transactions, this was the result of a single deal. When this is excluded, the value remains well below the long-term average. That said, the volume of transactions was greater than the same period in 2023, driven largely by smaller lot sizes. This is not surprising considering that we are now approaching a period of decreasing interest rates, which is likely causing developers to hold off on larger sized transactions until the lending environment becomes more favourable.”