Yorkshire estate agency to expand after sales of brand new homes tops £75m

Expansion plans have been unveiled by a Yorkshire estate agency after achieving a record-breaking £75m of new home sales in the past 12 months.

The specialist Land and New Homes department at Linley & Simpson is to extend its geographical footprint into untapped in-demand locations, after posting a year-on-year increase in turnover of more than 50 per cent.

The dedicated team, which has grown from two to seven and includes ex-developers, said the spike in demand for new homes following the Covid-19 pandemic, especially family ones in more rural areas, showed “no sign of slowing down”. Around two-in-three of its sales in the past year featured these properties.

Amid rising energy bills, the new homes trend is also buoyed by a growing appetite among Yorkshire house buyers for modern properties that are cheaper to run.

Its current portfolio of land and new homes for sale stands at 196, across 20 developments. There is an additional pipeline of more than 285 properties, worth a total of £85.5m, poised to be launched to market in the next two years.

The department, which is based at Linley & Simpson’s Harrogate office, already supports developer clients through a growing number of other High Street branches in neighbouring areas.

On the back of another year of growth, it is now to extend its offering across the whole network of 23 offices in Yorkshire and The Humber, linking in with the residential sales team at each branch.

These include Bingley, Chapel Allerton, Harrogate, Headingley, Horsforth, Ilkley, Leeds city centre, Pudsey, Ripon, Roundhay, Sheffield, Skipton, Wakefield, Wetherby and York. It will also strengthen its working partnership with Linley & Simpson’s sister companies, Dale Eddison, in Ilkley, Otley and Skipton; and Hardisty and Co in Horsforth.

David Waddington, the agency’s director of land and new homes, said: “Having grown into the largest land and new homes agent in the area, we now have a strong launch pad for taking our services to housebuilders in new territories.

“Developers can draw upon our team’s 130 collective years’ sales and marketing expertise in this sector, as well as take advantage of an aligned and connected branch network, which is set to expand further in 2022 and beyond.”