Name and business title: Gary Ennis, Southern Regional Managing Director, Barratt Developments.
Where is your firm developing new homes? As part of the Barratt Group, Barratt Southern Region operates under three different brands; Barratt Homes, David Wilson Homes and our Kent based division Ward Homes. I am currently overseeing the delivery of over a wide selection of new homes across about 12 counties in the South East of England.
What types of properties is Barratt building? Responding to local demands and requirements for housing in specific areas we build a wide spectrum of new homes. On one end of the scale we have great experience in building apartment schemes in areas of regeneration with great commuter links, such as Basildon or Woking. On the other end of the scale and appealing to a different purchaser, we also take pride in building million pound luxury family homes like we do at Bentley Priory in Stanmore. No matter where we build, we take pride in building quality new homes where people aspire to live and if our plans don't reflect this, we won't build it.
How much does a new home by Barratt cost to buy? Given the product range that we offer from first-time buyer apartments to luxury and executive family homes, our new homes currently available vary in cost from as little as £100,000 up to £1.75m. I would suggest that on average a three-bedroom family home in the Home Counties and within an easy commute of London would cost in the region of £300,000.
What makes a Barratt home stand out from the crowd? Definitely the design of our new homes makes us stand out from the crowd. The design of our properties are continually evolving and we work hard to develop our internal layouts through rigorous customer feedback. Also we can't forget our unique five year guarantee on fixtures and fittings - we are the only housebuilder to offer peace of mind from the point of purchase for a full five years.
Have you noticed any particular buying trends recently? Off-plan sales are back. We purchased a lot of land in 2009 and 2010 in desirable locations and as a result we are now seeing new homes come onto the market which are attracting a great deal of interest before we have even launched.
Is your company currently offering any incentives or discounts to homebuyers? We work hard with our customers to make buying a new home an option. So whilst we may not offer discounts, we will help homebuyers to make moving house and securing a mortgage an option. For example we offer Part-Exchange where we will buy an existing property from a homebuyer in order to help them move into a bigger new home. We also offer NewBuy, which enables any homebuyer to purchase a home up to the value of £500,000 with a 95% mortgage.
Which Barratt development potentially offers the best property investment prospects? Given the location and quality of our new homes developments, the majority of our developments do actually command a good rental yield. To highlight a couple of examples, we have apartments at our Reflections development in Colchester which are achieving rental yields of over 7.9%; hilst family homes at Trinity Village in Bromley attract yields of up to 6.27%. We offer tailored investor packs to make the whole process very easy and we now have investors purchasing for the first time as an alternative to pension savings plans.
What is Barratt Homes' USP? Quality homes in sought-after locations. In the Southern Region many of our developments are commutable to the capital whilst being in close proximity to local facilities and excellent schools.
Has Barratt Homes ever won a What House? Award? Yes. Over the years we have won several awards. Last year, in the Southern Region, we won an award for our New Central development in Woking.