We hear from Andrew Rinaldi, managing director of Antler Homes, on continuing the legacy of a company over 50-years-old.
Andrew, please could you tell us a little bit about your day-to-day role at Antler Homes?
I am the managing director, a role which is incredibly varied and means that I am involved in every aspect of the business, from planning and executing our growth strategy, to identifying and buying land, through to design, construction, sales and marketing. Our team is very collaborative in working to achieve our objectives.
Antler Homes enjoys a rich heritage that spans well over 50 years. Since buying the company four years ago, the world has changed significantly; how's business?
We are finding things to be probably not too dissimilar to what you hear from many of our peers. From a sales perspective, the market remains very busy. On the build side, like most housebuilders, we are working hard to overcome challenges driven by rising costs and supply chain delays. Our team are managing this extremely well and our growth plans have not been significantly delayed by supplier and labour constraints so far.
Antler Homes are good friends of WhatHouse? and have been delighted to receive a fair few prestigious awards in recent years! Is there one in particular that stands out to you?
We were extremely proud to win the WhatHouse? Best Small Housebuilder award a few years ago and look forward to entering again. Winning such a prestigious accolade is a great opportunity to celebrate the fantastic work of the Antler team, and an impressive stamp of approval recognised by our customers and partners.
Whyteleafe Grove
Can you tell us about the geographical areas you cover?
We focus on building high-quality family homes, generally one hour outside of London. We have live sites in Hampshire, Berkshire, Surrey and Sussex, and we are actively exploring sites in Kent. We are currently looking to expand into Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire and have recently hired a senior member in our land team specifically to focus on these areas and help us accelerate our growth objectives. We are really excited by these growth opportunities.
Which schemes are you marketing currently and how are they performing?
Whyteleafe Grove is our development of three and four-bedroom family homes in Caterham, which is perfectly located in a wide tree-lined avenue just over a mile from Caterham Town Centre. There are just six homes remaining for sale there and this has been an excellent development for us, having already sold the other 32 private homes.
We have recently launched Swan Meadows in the pretty village of Amberley, part of the South Downs National Park. This is a smaller development of 14 homes in total, comprising two-, three- and four-bedroom houses, and one- and two-bedroom apartments. We have sold five homes off-plan so far and customer demand is high given the beautiful and exclusive location.
Old Hamsey Lakes in South Chailey has recently sold out. This is a stunning, exclusive location in beautiful East Sussex. We delivered a collection of 55 two-, three-, four- and five-bedroom homes situated in an idyllic lakeside setting surrounded by ancient woodlands.
Old Hamsey Lakes
Oak Heath in Send Hill has also recently sold out. This is a select development of just eight two-, three- and four-bedroom homes in a quiet cul-de-sac a short walk from Send village.
We launched two new schemes in July. The Acres is a collection of 24 two-, three- and four-bedroom homes, located at the end of a long drive which adjoins and overlooks the cricket green and luscious fields in the charming West Sussex village of Slinfold; and Kingsmead in Felbridge is a development of just seven two-, three- and four-bedroom detached homes situated in a peaceful private road about a mile and a half from the pretty market town of East Grinstead. We are then launching a second phase at Oak Heath in Send Hill in September … so we are very busy!
Do you see the cost of living crisis and increasing interest rates affecting sales of new homes in the near future?
We have not seen much of an impact as yet. We would expect the cost of living rises to start impacting the housing market in the medium term, however the high design quality of our homes and the fact that we are building in popular locations within good commuter areas means that we continue to see record levels of sales. Of course, none of us have a crystal ball, but demand continues to outweigh supply in our locations, and we look forward to delivering more new homes to help meet this need.
Do you offer any particular incentives in any of your current schemes for new home buyers?
We differentiate ourselves from our competitors with a ‘what you see is what you get’ approach. Every home comes with high-quality flooring, stone counter tops, integrated appliances, oak staircases and electric car charging points as standard, just to name a few, offering excellent value to all of our customers. With all of this as standard, and demand for our homes being what it is, we generally do not need to add additional incentives.
What would you tell first-time buyers about purchasing a new build home?
That we can make their lives easier. Our purchase process is straight forward and buying a new home means no complex chains or relying on other buyers and sellers. Our customers move into a newly built home that is low in maintenance and offers significant environmental benefits including high levels of insulation, which contributes towards lowering utility bills. In addition to the ten-year structural guarantee that is provided with all new homes, Antler also offers an additional two-year warranty to replace or repair any defects.
Graylings
And what would be the best piece of advice you could offer a retired downsizing couple from a large family home to a smaller new build?
My advice would be to look closely at new build homes and what they can offer. We would be delighted to show them one of our homes and hope that they would choose an Antler home. We provide design-led, beautiful homes of all sizes and offer the ease of living with a high specification as standard and the benefit of additional warranties, making it a lot more hassle-free than purchasing an older home. There is far less maintenance required for a newly built home, a new garden which might be more manageable and lower utility bills. As with all newly built homes, there is no onward chain so the purchase process is quick and easy.
Are Antler Homes doing anything in particular for sustainability?
As a smaller housebuilder, we are very proud of our commitments to sustainability. We were quick to implement changes that will make our customers’ lives simpler and less costs, such as solar panels and electric car charging points, and taking a ‘fabric first’ approach, but we are also going beyond this. Our site in Amberley has air source heat pumps in every home along with green roofs and we are also very excited to be building our first Passivhaus there. In addition, we are about to commence building our first water-neutral site.
We also believe modular build has strong potential to play a key role in solving housing delivery issues and can offer significant environmental benefits. This is something we are exploring in the near term along with a range of other sustainability initiatives.
And finally, what's next at Antler Homes?
We have made many additions to our team recently; there are 40 of us now and we are looking to grow the business significantly over the next few years. We are currently building on six sites and have another six which will be commencing over the next six to nine months, so this is quite a transformational period for us. It is a very busy, but massively enjoyable and satisfying time for us at Antler Homes.