Origin keeps presales, revenue targets

As most of its new projects launched this year will be low-rise houses, SET listed developer Origin Property Plc is maintaining the same presales and revenue targets for this year.

Chief executive Peerapong Jaroon-ek said the low-rise housing market has resumed since early this month with a rising number of customers visiting project sites after the partial relaxation of the lockdown.

“The second quarter will be the bottom of the market, but our presales in this period will not drop from the first quarter, as our main products are low-rise houses, a segment for which demand is strong,” Mr Peerapong said. “The Covid-19 outbreak created good momentum in the low-rise market.”

In the first week of May, Origin posted 600-700 million baht in presales from single detached houses and townhouses, compared with 400-500 million baht in the same period last year.

Mr Peerapong said extension lines of mass transit networks will run to almost all areas of outer Bangkok, providing an opportunity for the low-rise housing market.

In the first quarter, Origin launched two low-rise projects worth 3.3 billion baht and received good feedback.

One project was for townhouses priced from 3 million baht a unit in the Sai Mai area, where an extension of the skytrain from Kasetsart University will run early next month.

Plans call for launching the remaining 12 projects worth a combined 16.7 billion baht in the second half.

Most of them will be low-rise housing developments.

Origin reported 2.4 billion baht in revenue in the first quarter, down 30% from the same period in 2019, with net profit of 595 million baht, a drop of 17%.

Of the first-quarter revenue, 540 million baht was from low-rise houses.

With expansion in the low-rise house segment, Origin expects revenue from low-rise houses to rise from 20% of the total this year to 40% in 2022, the same share as condo revenue.

Origin is maintaining its presales target of 21 billion baht by the end of 2020 after recording 8 billion baht over the first four months of the year.

Revenue will be 16 billion baht, it said, as it has a sales backlog of more than 40 billion baht, of which 14 billion baht will be realised later this year.