Consented for 450 homes, 334 titles have already been issued, so it’s slowly but steadily filling out.
Property and development director Ben O’Malley says they’ll probably start master-planning this year for one of their last big stages — land running up the side of Waterfall Park which was bought a few years ago "just to tidy up some corners up there".
"Depending on how many apartment-style units we put in there, it could be 60, 80.
"We need to start designing that soon as Mill Farm is nearly sold out, plus there are some time constraints with the Overseas Investment Office purchase."
There are only about 11 land-only lots left on Mill Farm, around which Millbrook’s last nine golf holes were built, O’Malley says, though they’ll also develop some house-and-land packages.
"The date where it becomes one out, one in, is getting closer and closer, and that’s when I see the real value growth of Millbrook will happen."
He says sales were a bit sluggish in the second half of last year, which he puts down to a slight mismatch between buyers’ and sellers’ expectations.
However, there were still $60million of sales — mostly resales — in the 12 months till the end of September.
"Just lately, we’re definitely getting some signs of things picking up — some very good, qualified buyers coming in that are ready to meet the market."
After Covid, O’Malley notes, "construction prices went very high with rapid inflation".
"It sort of scared a few people off buying land only, so they were tending to pivot into more completed homes where they knew it was a finite cost.
"Now the construction escalation has settled right down — some things have come back in price — so people are moving back to the land-only option."
