Homebuyers up for a half-price bargain
THE huge 'clearance sale' banner hanging outside was more reminiscent of cut-price sofa stores than property sales.
But, in a sign of how far the property market has fallen, a Larne developer, desperate for sales, sold apartments for up to half of their price last year.
Despite the collapsing property market, 17 buyers had bought apartments within the first four hours of the apartments going on sale on Friday.
And, in a throwback to the heady, now almost forgotten, days of the property boom in 2006 and early 2007, some determined buyers even camped overnight outside the apartments.
Local estate agent Mark Clark said that there had been great demand for the Laharna development.
"The promotion lasts until they are all sold — some of the apartments are built and some are being built so there is a choice of what to buy.
"The smallest, at 675 sq ft is 78,475 and the biggest, which is 955 sq ft, is 255,000."
Mr Clark said that most of those buying were first-time buyers — young professionals, young couples and the retired individuals and couples wanting to buy a smaller house.
"Three of the apartments had 50 percent off and the remainder had about 40 percent or thereabouts off."
Five of the apartments had been agreed for sale at "full price" last year.
Asked how those buyers were now feeling at seeing their properties effectively halved in value over a year, Mr Clark said: "The builder has been flexible and renegotiated prices with them — their contracts haven't been completed yet, they will be completed next week."
The estate agent conceded that the advertised "price guarantee" would be irrelevant if all of the properties were sold as it only indemnified buyers against falls in property values if the developer cut the price of the remaining apartments further.
If all of the apartments are sold at current prices, there will therefore be nothing to guarantee the buyers from any further falls in the property market.
But Mr Clark said that the much-publicised problems with the property market had not put people off.
"When we opened at 1pm, there were about 25 people queuing. Two people queued overnight.
"We've had about 200 people through the door and expecting to be bunged tonight and all weekend."
Earlier this week, the Nationwide Building Society warned that Northern Ireland's property market is falling faster than anywhere else in the UK — down by 30 percent on last year.
And, in the wake of the Government's historic bail-out of UK banks, Dr Graham Gudgin, senior economic advisor at Oxford Economics, said that the Province's house prices have only fallen about halfway to where they will settle.
Dr Gudgin, a former economic advisor to the Assembly, said that the lending patterns which allowed prices to rise so far — 110 per cent mortgages and lending young professionals up to 10 times their income — had now gone and were unlikely to return.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Belfast
Monday 13 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 4 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 6 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North west
