Huntsmere benefits from demise of "wine bar" developers
THE demise of the “wine bar developers” who relied heavily on bank debt to create luxury housing in Cheshire’s property hotspots is creating more opportunities for firms with established pedigrees, according to Alderley Edge-based developer Hunstmere.
The company’s founder and owner Chris Oakes has said that although demand for £1m-plus homes has generally fallen in recent years there are fewer firms with the ability to raise enough funds to undertake speculative build projects.
“Most of the Manchester-based lenders are regional branches of big high street banks who just aren’t in this market any more – particularly for any speculative development,” he said.
He has funded his recent projects from specialist lenders and by going out of the region to funders in London and further afield.
“There are lenders in the market but they are more focused on lending to companies with more of a trackrecord.
“A few years ago there were lots of wine-bar developers and you didn’t need much equity back then. Now you do.”
He said that his Alderley Edge-based residential development group expects to achieve a turnover of around £10m next year through a mix of speculative and built-to-order homes.
The firm is currently on site with five luxury homes with a total end value of almost £20m and has a pipeline of work containing 15 new homes which will keep it operating “pretty much at capacity” until the spring of 2012.
“Over the last couple of years there have been a lot of people exiting this market,” he said.
Oakes said that one of the speculative build projects for which he recently gained funding had sold within weeks while another had sold off-plan.
He added that there were were still sites available in the Alderley Edge, Prestbury and Mottram sites with planning consent on which new mansions can be built, but added that the market for selling larger properties was still difficult.
He has completed a number of joint ventures with the owners of stalled sites and is set to start on site next year at projects in Wilmslow, Mere and at Caldy on the Wirral peninsula.
