The value of Irish land sales arrived at about €99 million in the second quarter, bringing the total year-to-date turnover to €193 million, according to new data from property adviser Savills Ireland.
This represents an increase of 15 per cent on the same period in 2020, when turnover reached €167 million.
Savills said it expected to see several large deals sign by the end of the year, which will drive turnover higher in the final half of 2021.
The market for commercially-zoned land “remains strong”, it said, with high levels of interest in the former City Arts site on Dublin’s City Quay. The site, which was recently offered for sale with a guide price of €35 million, has the potential to accommodate an office development of approximately 142,000sq ft, subject to planning permission.
A number of bids have been received “well in excess of the guide price”, the firm said, while a number of new funding sources are said to have entered the market, most notably from the UK and the Middle East.
The largest deal of the second quarter was an off-market sale in south Dublin, representing a €15 million trade.
Another notable transaction was the sale of an 11-acre site on Glenamuck Road, Dublin 18, which traded for €10.5 million. The site has full planning permission, granted by An Bord Pleanála in 2020, for a Strategic Housing Development of 197 residential units.
This follows on from a deal for a 33-acre site on Glenamuck Road in the fourth quarter of 2020 that sold for approximately €20 million. A third site of approximately 7.5 acres in the area has just gone sale agreed.
"It is likely that the strong growth in house prices helped to drive demand for residentially-zoned land. In total we estimate that residential zone land sales accounted for more than 75 per cent of total sales volumes," said John Swarbrigg, director of development land at Savills Ireland.
