CALA Group, the privately-owned housing and property developer, has announced a second successive year of record profits.

But it is building fewer homes in a tougher environment.

The Scottish company has a major office in Birmingham out of which operate premium housebuilder CALA Homes ( Midlands) , commercial property developer CALA Properties and residential development funding arm CALA Finance.

The company increased pretax profit eight per cent to £27.8 million in the year to June, on turnover of £225.1 million, down from £228 million.

It has grown its consented land bank to a turnover value of £972 million, 27 per cent more than the year before.

The group achieved a considerably higher average house sales price of £ 251,000 compared to £234,000 the previous year, with a modest fall in margin from 20.7 per cent to 20.1 per cent.

However home sales were well down at 1,340 from 1,505 last time.

In the West Midlands all three group companies contributed strongly to CALA's results.

CALA Homes (Midlands) had a buoyant year. It achieved the off-plan sale of its entire £40 million luxury apartment development, Postbox, to a single purchaser, and in conjunction with CALA Properties, it sold on its development site at Brassington Avenue in Sutton Coldfield, where it had won planning permission for a £50 million mixed use development of 295 apartments and 80,000 sq ft of commercial space in seven retail/leisure units.

It has developments under construction at Fradley near Lichfield, in Solihull and Imperial Place in Leamington Spa. In 2006 it plans to start work on new developments in Four Oaks, Knowle and Solihull. CALA Finance, which provides 100 per cent development funding to smaller housebuilders, funded a further 15 residential schemes to the tune of some £45 million, where 250 new homes are being built.

Key schemes financed in the last financial year include Selbourne Homes' £7 million development, known as The Edge in Wordsley, Langstone Homes' £8 million scheme at Belwell Lane, Mere Green, Sutton Coldfield, and Damar Homes' £3 million Sundridge Court development in Great Barr.

Commercial property arm CALA Properties owns, on its own account or in joint venture, more than 550,000 sq ft of commercial space for development in the West Midlands and Scotland, which it is looking to go ahead with in the next 12 months.