Millionaire homes builder marks change in fortunes

Over 5,000 people turned up to gawk at the £1 million houses launched last week at Carrickmines Wood, off Brennanstown Road. They were sightseers only since all of the 16 houses had been sold before they got there. It wasn't always so easy for Michael Cotter's Park Developments. In the mid-1980s when he launched The Park, at the other end of the site, it took him no less than eight years to sell 650 houses - around 80 houses a year - costing between £38,000 for a three-bedroom semi and £41,000 for a four-bedroom semi. Even in the early 1990s his fortunes hadn't changed because it took him no less than 18 months to find buyers for 56 large houses in Lambourne Wood which made between £120,000 and £175,000. He obviously kept the best end of the former McGrath estate for his most ambitious development.

Carrickmines Wood is not going to be all large luxury houses. There will be around 70 apartments to be released in the summer, and, later on, 19 or so two-bedroom and three-bedroom terraced houses - which will be ideal when those first buyers want to trade down in their twilight years.