Sales of development land up 77% on last year

AINE McMAHON

Sales of development land is up 77 per cent on last year according to figures released today.

Commercial property consultants CBRE Ireland have released statistics on the volume and value of development land sales in the Irish market in the first six months of 2016,.

A total of 53 development land transactions, totalling more than €489 million between them were completed in Ireland during the first half of 2016.

This compares with €276 million in 54 land sales in the same period last year.

Peter Garrigan from the Development Land team at CBRE Ireland said there had been strong activity in the land market since the beginning of the year following a bumper 2015 when sales exceeded €770 million.

“Against a backdrop of severe undersupply in the residential sector and continued strong demand in the commercial property sector, it is perhaps not surprising that the demand for development land has continued unabated in 2016,” he said.

Mr Garrigan said most of the land being traded is in relatively small lot sizes and expects this will continue to be the case in the second half of the year.