Home builder Cairn Homes said it closed a total of 1,526 new homes sales in the year to December, up from 1,120 in 2021 as it continues to strong demand across all of markets.
Cairn Homes today reported revenues of €617.4m for 2022, up 46% on the €424m in 2021, with more than €610m generated from core homebuilding activities.
Its operating profit soared by 76% to €103m from €58.4m while its basic earnings per share rose to 11.5 cent from 5.8 cent in 2021.
The Cairn Board has proposed a final dividend of 3.1 cent for a full year dividend of 6.1 cent per ordinary share, subject to shareholder approval.
The company reported build cost inflation of €20,000 per new home built, up from €15,000 in 2021 but said that inflation moderated somewhat in the second half of the year.
The average selling price, excluding VAT, for its starter homes was €366,000, up from €350,000 the previous year.
The company noted an "exceptionally" strong second half of 2022 with 979 sales completions, total revenue of €377m and €129.6m of operating cashflow generated.
It said its average sales rates were in excess of four new homes per week per active selling site during the year.
Michael Stanley, Cairn Homes CEO, said that given the social, economic and political primacy of resolving the housing shortage in Ireland, it is reassuring that Cairn has delivered a record 1,526 new home sales in 2022.
"We will back that up with an even bigger delivery this year for private buyers and for a broadening number of State partners," Michael Stanley said.
"Our improving profitability supports this by enabling increasing and sustained reinvestment in our housing output. Momentum is gathering pace into 2023, with closed and forward sales currently at over 1,500 new homes," he said.
"We expect full year delivery of up to 1,800 new homes, all of which have full planning permission," he added.
Michael Stanley also said it was clear that the country suffers from a "damaging undersupply" of apartments adjacent to areas of high employment.
He said that recently published research from Eurostat shows that at 10%, Ireland has the lowest percentage of its population living in apartments in Europe, where the average is over 50%.
The research also points out that the composition of the country's existing housing stock is massively biased towards large multi-bedroom houses, which are under-occupied.
"Location is as important as typology in addressing this imbalance. New, quality built and energy efficient affordable and private rental apartments in urban locations and on transport links are now critically important," the CEO said.
"Our FDI model, which has been a dominant driver of economic growth over the past decades, will also suffer in the absence of these additional homes. Cairn is actively responding to this dual imperative as a market leader in the accelerated delivery of well-designed and located scaled apartment developments," he concluded.
Shares in Cairn Homes ended higher in Dublin trade.
