City Lofts Group has gone into the red as it looks to build its business on the back of the growing numbers of so-called singletons looking for homes.

The developer of urban mixed-use property schemes primarily focused on residential apartments made a pretax loss of £3.86 million in the nine months to the end of December.

That compared with a £5.38 million profit in the previous year.

Turnover was £1.6 million against £57.1 million.

The huge discrepancy is because there were "no new sales completions from existing developments".

However six are progress-ing, totalling 901 apartments with a gross development value of £183 million, of which 65 per cent have been pre-sold.

They are in Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool, Nottingham, Manchester and Cardiff.

Five new developments of 1,326 apartments with a GDV of £274 million are set to start on site this year in Sutton Coldfield, Sheffield, Gates-head, Liverpool and Manchester.

There will be 295 apart-ments at Park Point in the centre of Sutton Coldfield.

The mixed-use nine storey scheme also takes in 63,500 sq ft of retail/leisure space and car parking.

The forecast GDV of the scheme is around £79.4 million. It is expected to start construction in the summer.

Chairman John Holt said: "There have been no new sales completions from existing developments currently under construction in this nine month period. However, this has been a busy period for City Lofts and there continues to be considerable positive activity securing the future growth prospects of the group.

"The loss before tax essentially represents the cost of administrative expenses incurred."

Turnover for the year ending December 31, 2006 is expected to be between £100 million and £120 million.

Mr Holt said: "Long term investor demand for our apartments remains good. We continue to remain confident about meeting our expectations in 2006 and look forward to bringing current developments to completion and getting others underway."

Stuart Wright, chief executive, noted some caution from owner-occupiers and a falling away of smaller, speculative buy-to-let investors.

However he went on: "We are still seeing professional investors taking a medium to long term view and remaining active. We have seen a pick-up in the market since the beginning of 2006.

"Underlying market demo-graphics and continuing interest in city centre living continue to support the City Lofts' strategy.

"Single person households represent 30 per cent of all households and are forecast to grow to 40 per cent by 2021. Employment of key professionals in the important

financial and business service sectors in major cities is predicted to increase from 18 per cent to 22 per cent by 2011."

The management team has been strengthened with Andy Hurst, previously sales and m arketing director of Solihull-based Bryant Homes, part of Taylor Woodrow, joining the group in a similar capacity.

There is a final dividend of 3.27p.