And Peter Seymour, managing director of The Mortgage Shop, is advising young people to start ‘saving hard’ to get on the property ladder before new developments are no longer available.
Prospective buyers for the Soave apartments – the third phase of Le Masurier’s Merchants Square development in Bath Street – queued from as early as 2pm the day before they went on sale on Saturday. The full scheme will feature 149 residential units, a Premier Inn and three commercial units.
Mr Seymour said that it was not the first time that Islanders had queued for a property, and that it was a ‘very clear indication of the demand for quality, newly built properties’ in St Helier.
However, he said that a recent ‘surge’ in developments would not be maintained and that there would always be an increasing demand for units – which might not be constructed ‘in the same numbers’ within the next couple of years.
‘There’s been a block of a couple of good-quality sites around the Island which are now being developed, but once these [developments] have been completed and sold off there is likely to be a diminution in the number of new properties for sale in the private sector being constructed. So there is an incentive for people to get on the property ladder now because maybe in two years’ time there won’t be anything available until the next new developments are constructed.’
He added: ‘The important thing is for people to start saving and saving hard – this is the only chance they will have.’
The latest house-price index published by Statistics Jersey showed that the average cost of a home rose by 5% in 2020, with the average house price in Jersey reaching a record high of £567,000.
Brian McCarthy, managing director of Le Masurier, said that almost 60% of the Merchants Square apartments released so far had gone to first-time buyers.
‘We’re so pleased about that because our intention here really is to focus on young people and first-time buyers,’ he said. ‘It’s great to give the youngsters a foot on the property ladder – that’s really what this is all about for us.
‘I’ve never seen people queueing up overnight for something like this. I think it’s a function of the lack of supply in the market and the strong demand that is out there – but also if you are producing something that is a quality offer that is unprecedented for Jersey then people are prepared to queue up for it.’
Chantelle Mundy (25) and her fiancée began queuing for the Soave development at 6pm on Friday, and managed to secure their first apartment.
‘We’ve been looking for a little while and we’d heard really good things about the developer,’ she said. ‘We found out [on Friday] from a friend that people had already started queuing – we grabbed some camping chairs, blankets, hot water bottles as well as some snacks and headed down there.’
She added that the developers came out with bacon rolls at 7am, and that many of the people queuing appeared to be first-time buyers.
Michael Rodrigues (24) – who was first in line – said he had been saving up for an apartment ‘for a very long time’ and that he started queuing at 2pm on Friday.
‘I was probably the youngest [in the queue] but everyone else was fairly young,’ he said. ‘It was great to see so many young people getting onto the [property] ladder, and some of my friends even came out to support me while I was waiting.’
