Announcing interim results for the six months ending June 30, the listed company says demand is particularly strong from first-time buyers (FTBs), who drove €625m of growth in the order book.
This had led to a weekly sales rate of 4.1 new homes per active selling site.
“Mortgage market conditions remain positive against a backdrop of falling interest rates and strong wage growth, most notably amongst FTBs, who represented 73pc of mortgage drawdowns in the year to Q2 2025 – the highest share since the start of the data series in 2003,” the company said.
It’s guiding revenues of €945m for this financial year, and operating profit of €160m-plus
“In the same period, there was 32,298 FTB mortgage approvals, the highest level since the global financial crisis. With national housing completions at 32,717 in the year to June 2025, supply remains significantly below mortgage-backed demand.”
Cairn upgraded its guidance for this financial year to revenues of €945m, and an operating profit of €160m to €165m.
Its guidance for 2026 is for revenue of between €1.02bn and €1.05bn, and an operating profit of €175m to €180m.
Revenue in the first six months of this year was €284.5m, including €274m in residential property sales, arising from sales of 708 units. This compared to €366.1m in the same period in 2024, from the sale of 893 units.
This year-on-year decline of 22pc was in line with an expectation that this financial year would be weighted to the second half. Net average selling price was €387,000, compared to €388,000 last year.
Net debt stood at just over €307m, compared to €157m in the first six months of last year. Cairn said this reflected the scale of the investment it made in the first half of 2025, and increased construction activity, and it expects the net debt to unwind in the second half of the year.
It said the gross profit of €63.1m, giving a margin of 22.2pc, “illustrated scaled operational efficiencies through our supply chain relationships, procurement strategy and execution of our innovation agenda”.
Build cost inflation of between 1pc and 1.5pc is expected for this financial year, down from about 2pc at the start of 2025, which Cairn says reflects its focus on innovation, productivity and making procurement efficiencies.
In July it further refinanced part of its US private placement debt, increasing this facility by €40m to €97.5m. The company says it now has access to €500m of committed debt facilities.
Since June, it has bought land that will deliver about 900 new homes, and exercised a joint venture option which will deliver another 700. Its total landbank now stands at about 16,900 plots.
CEO Michael Stanley noted that Cairn marked a decade in business last June, and was proud to have built a market leadership position, with a market capitalisation of €1.35bn and over 30,000 people living in a home it built.
“I am also very pleased to report that the business is performing strongly, our strategy is working, and we have doubled down on investment in our construction activities,” he said.
“As this unwinds, it will lead to a strong second half which is why we are raising our guidance today for 2025 and also introducing new guidance as a result of increased housing output for 2026.”
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