It was a strong year in the development land sector, with most of the demand proving to be for residential opportunities.
From a supply perspective, it was very much a year of two halves, with significantly more product available in the first half of the year. Finding suitably zoned land in the fourth quarter has proven almost impossible – a worrying development as we head into 2026.
The housing crisis has clearly been well-publicised for many years. Previous ministers for housing have introduced various measures to aid the viability of construction (eg, development levy waiver and Uisce Éireann connection rebate; Croí Cónaithe), but these have not been enough to increase supply.
The penny seems latterly to have dropped, however, and Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage James Browne has issued a directive to local authorities to zone more land. This is the first in a five-step delivery process (zoning, servicing, planning [appeals, judicial reviews], construction and sales). This is a very positive action by Mr Browne, but if this process doesn’t happen quickly, the situation will very much worsen.
READ MORE
Soundings to date with regard to the buy-in to this process by the various local authorities has been mixed, and if this doesn’t improve quickly, Mr Browne will have to look at taking this round of zonings into his own hands.
Apartment-building needs to form about 50 per cent of the effort in order to get anywhere near delivering the 50,000 units a year we need. During the summer, the Minister made the very positive step of revisiting standards for apartments to help close the viability gap on their delivery. This was a very positive move with almost immediate buy-in from developers and funders.
Alas, a judicial review was lodged against these changes, with the case due to be heard in December. If this challenge is successful, it will push the introduction of the new standards back to about summer of next year - another full 12 months lost. The Government needs to be more radical in dealing with supply.
In terms of actual trades, 2025 was very strong. We saw demand for land in all elements of the development cycle, from unzoned holdings to sites with planning. This is the first year in a long time that we saw demand for unzoned land, but given what we have highlighted earlier, this shouldn’t be a surprise. Knight Frank traded 97 acres of strategic reserve land in Maynooth for more than €15 million during the summer, while also selling 19 acres of residentially zoned land in Balbriggan for more than €15 million. The Balbriggan land was a real indicator of the demand, with about 10 large-scale developers chasing the site.
[ Park Developments pays €15m for Balbriggan siteOpens in new window ]
Correctly designed apartment sites were also in demand, such as a car park site in Dún Laoghaire with planning for 74 units, which traded at more than its €5.5 million guide.
If the new apartment regulations can come into play quickly, we will see a significant increase in both supply and demand for sites.
Evan Lonergan is a director at Knight Frank
