There’s nothing to boost house building

BRIAN McKeon, 45, is a married father of three who has been in business since 1996 with MKN Developments, now giving employment to 130 workers.

He followed his father into the building trade and has been working since his teens.

Before the Budget, he hoped for ‘some initiatives that will get house building back to where it should be and to help the first-time buyers to get on the ladder’.

‘The biggest issue they have is the Central Bank rules on mortgage lending, particularly the three-anda-half times their salary,’ he said.

‘The other issue is the standard mortgage is for 30-35 years. Like everyone, you would hope that in that time you’d be on substantially more than you are now. But they don’t take that into account, it’s what you’re on today. Anyone who’s working for me, in a year’s time they’d be on more than they are now.

‘At the moment what we’re building and trying to sell, we couldn’t start a new site and build those houses for the same money, there’d be no profit in it.

‘What people are buying now will increase in value. I think the days of the big boom and the crash and people in negative equity… I’m not saying it’ll never happen again but I don’t think i t’ll happen i n my lifetime. We’ll be more wary.’

He thought that ‘what should happen straight away is reduce the VAT level. It had a big impact on the tourism sector and it would have the same effect on house building.

‘If there was a VAT decrease, we’d pass that on.

‘Business could be better,’ he had noted ahead of the Budget.

‘We have planning permission for 173 units – three-, four- and five-bedroom houses aimed at the first-time buyer market, people trading up and families. But I have 14 houses already built and some of them are standing six months at this stage unsold, so there’s no point in me starting to build more.

‘The Central Bank cap needs to be removed. That needs to happen.’

Following yesterday’s Budget announcements, Mr McKeon said: ‘From a housing point of view, I’m no better off than I was three hours ago. It was very disappointing there was nothing there to boost house building.

‘Mr Noonan could have reduced VAT on building. It was a great success for the tourism industry and it would have been for the construction industry.

‘It’s 13.5 per cent at the moment so cutting it to 9 per cent, the same as it is in tourism, we could have taken that money off the sale price and that would have automatically brought it within the scope of a lot of people looking for houses.

‘Lowering the rate of USC helps: it starts bringing a bit of money back into the economy. The minimum wage doesn’t really affect the construction industry because we pay way above the minimum as it is. So from that point of view I’m disappointed.’