{"id":329288,"date":"2026-03-05T00:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/329288\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T00:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:06:15","slug":"first-time-buyers-with-government-grants-now-50-of-cairns-customer-base-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/329288\/","title":{"rendered":"First-time buyers with Government grants now 50% of Cairn\u2019s customer base \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

First-time buyers availing of Government grants now represent about 50 per cent of Cairn Homes\u2019<\/a> customer base, chief executive Michael Stanley said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

He also said it was too early to judge how much of a price shock the current Middle East conflict represents for the company.<\/p>\n

Stanley was speaking after the Dublin-listed home builder reported double-digit increases in profit and revenue for last year, while saying it expected housing output to increase by 35 per cent this year and next.<\/p>\n

The company said it is now \u201cfirmly positioned\u201d to achieve output of about 6,000 new homes between this year and next, including about 3,200 homes in 2027.<\/p>\n

The group said demand across all buyer profiles, most notably among first-time buyers, remained \u201cexceptionally strong\u201d in 2025, with the company delivering 2,365 units<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t break down our markets because they move around a lot, but if you look back over the last 10 years, historically, approximately 50 per cent of our output has been for first-time buyers,\u201d Stanley said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Could Trump\u2019s new global tariff scupper the US-EU trade deal?<\/p>\n

He said the company was now seeing a \u201csignificant\u201d pickup in interest from PRS (private rented sector) investors after a long drought.<\/p>\n

He linked the renewed interest in the Irish market to rent controls and design standard changes.<\/p>\n

While the company had no new PRS deals to announce, Stanley said it was \u201chaving conversations\u201d with interested parties.<\/p>\n

A fall-off in PRS investment in 2022 and 2023 linked to higher interest rates resulted in a pronounced slowdown in housing output here.<\/p>\n

In its latest full-year results, Cairn Homes delivered a 10 per cent increase in revenue to \u20ac944.6 million, which included the sale of 2,365 units, up from 2,241 units in 2024.<\/p>\n

Profit after tax increased 16 per cent from \u20ac114.6 million to \u20ac132.7 million, equating to basic earnings per share of 21.3 cent, up from 17.9 cent. <\/p>\n

Cairn said \u201cexceptionally strong demand\u201d reflected in a \u201crecord order book\u201d and that the company \u201ccontinues to benefit from a fundamentally robust housing market characterised by structural undersupply\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese conditions, combined with our disciplined capital allocation strategy and substantial investment in operational scaling, have created a platform for consistent volume growth and strong financial performance,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

It said this demand could also be seen in the growth of its closed and forward order book, which increased to 3,452 new homes with a net sales value of over \u20ac1.32 billion as of Tuesday, up from 2,593 new homes and \u20ac989 million a year ago.<\/p>\n

The average selling price (net of VAT) increased to \u20ac392,000 in 2025 from \u20ac383,000 in 2024, primarily driven by product mix. <\/p>\n

The company said average selling price inflation on the 8,969 new home sales in the five years to 2025 was 4.9 per cent compared to a 29.4 per cent increase in average new home selling prices in the wider market.<\/p>\n

Cairn said it was upgrading its guidance for 2026 with revenue of about \u20ac1.05 billion-\u20ac1.08 billion from \u20ac1.02 billion-\u20ac1.05 billion previously. <\/p>\n

The board recommended a final dividend of 5.9 cent per ordinary share, which, combined with the interim dividend of 4.1 cent per ordinary share, results in a total dividend of 10 cent per ordinary share for the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First-time buyers availing of Government grants now represent about 50 per cent of Cairn Homes\u2019 customer base, chief…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,21443,30559,3662,61,60,126998],"class_list":{"0":"post-329288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cairn-homes","10":"tag-first-time-buyer","11":"tag-housing-crisis","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-michael-stanley"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}