Houses at the exclusive Belvoir Park development are selling out fast – with more than £6million worth of property shifting in a matter of hours.

Househunters hoping to set up home at the South Belfast development will have to move quickly as 20 out of 27 sites from phase one have already been snapped up.

Some buyers were so keen to secure their dream home that they turned up at 6am today to make sure they were first in the queue when the properties went on sale at 5pm today.

Simon O’Brien from the estate agency handling the sale of the houses said: “These were the people who knew exactly which house they wanted and didn’t want to miss out.

“I’m not surprised at the turnout as we’ve had about 550 people registering an interest on the website.”

More than £6m of properties, priced between £245,000 and £310,000, were sold within two hours of Simon O’Brien Residential opening up the reservation book this evening.

Would-be buyers had to hand over a £1,000 deposit and they could not be involved in a chain to allow the sale to complete within eight weeks.

Mr O’Brien continued: “The kind of people who have been booking properties are renting or have already sold their house.

“We were up here for a meeting at 10am and there were about 12 people waiting at that stage.

“I was speaking to one person who is holding on to their current house and are going to rent it.

“This is quite a unique opportunity as this is the largest new development to be released in the greater Belfast area in the last eight years.

“This is the first phase, there will be 300 houses in total, and the first properties will be ready from the end of this year.

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Unlike many new build developments, Belvoir Park will boast an abundance of green space – with 34 acres of parkland spread across the 64 acre site.

Located on the the leafy Belvoir Park hospital site, the old listed red brick buildings will be converted into homes as well.

Zara McAleese, 32, was at the sales office this evening, and said: “I’m here looking around.

“I would love to be able to buy something here but I just want to get a better feel for the layout before I make a commitment.”

Mr O’Brien continued: “There’s a lot more demand than supply in houses in the new build sector and re-sale sector.

“I do think all the properties will be sold this weekend.

“From the point of view of the construction industry, this is also good news as there will be up to 200 construction staff on site and with associated consultants, you are talking about 1,000 people in total.”

Belvoir Park Hospital opened in 1906 and was originally known as Purdysburn Fever Hospital and later Montgomery House, before being renamed Belvoir Park Hospital in the 1960s.

It closed in March 2006 following the opening of a new cancer centre at Belfast City Hospital and was reportedly sold by the Belfast Health Social Care Trust to private developers for £4.4million.

The development will be open to prospective buyers again tomorrow between 4pm and 7pm, Saturday between 11am and 3pm and Sunday between 2pm and 4pm. For more information, log on to www.belvoir-park.com.