Listed house-builder Cairn Homes has sold a prime residential site in Stillorgan, Dublin, that it acquired in 2015 for €5.45 million.
The two-acre site on Stillorgan Park Road is currently occupied by a period house named Árd na Glaise, which is not a protected structure.
When Cairn acquired the site it envisaged that construction would commence in the second quarter of 2016, anticipating that it might accommodate 50 units subject to planning permission. However, the company never submitted a planning application.
Cairn declined to comment on the transaction or the price achieved on Friday, saying that it was in a closed period pending the release of its annual results next month.
Chief executive Michael Stanley last May confirmed Cairn's intention to sell non-core sites. This was seen to refer to sites with the capacity to deliver a number of homes that Cairn has now deemed to be too small for its business model.
He said at the time that he expected the company to realise about €50 million from the sale of such sites by the end of 2018. Results for the first half of 2017 showed revenue of €14.1 million from such sales in that period.
The Stillorgan site was likely classified by Cairn as non-core and earmarked for sale as a result.
Property industry
The purchaser of the Cairn site is Homeland Projects, a development company led by Neil Collins. Mr Collins has been involved in the property industry for many years, heading up a Cork-based building contracting company he founded in 2002.
The Homeland brand first emerged in 2015 with the launch of Silveracre in Rathfarnham, Dublin, one of the first post-bust era new homes developments, where each house was sold for an average of almost €1 million.
Since then the company has become one of the most active house-builders in Dublin, launching several new homes schemes and having a number of active developments under construction or at planning stage.
Homeland has found opportunity in the decision by other developers, such as Cairn, to concentrate on larger scale sites by selling their smaller holdings.
Last year, in another off-market deal, it acquired ready-to-go sites from the Marlet Property Group on Westminster Road in Foxrock and Dublin Street in Baldoyle.
The company is also likely to target development opportunities outside Dublin. It is understood to have acquired recently a large site near Limerick city, according to documents filed with the Companies Registration Office.
