The Green Party has called on the Government to consider capping the price of new houses following the report that lenders are increasingly rejecting loans to lower income families.
Deputy Trevor Sargent said it is time for the Government to sit around the table with the building industry and produce a new formula to assist first-time buyers. He said the formula should take into account the price of the land, the cost of construction materials, the cost of construction and a reasonable profit margin for the builder.
This follows the publication of a new report on the housing market, which concluded that there is little risk of a collapse in Irish house prices of the sort that took place in Britain nearly a decade ago.
The report was compiled by NCB stockbrokers. It says that in spite of the steep rise in house prices here, most of the factors that caused the British collapse are absent. The report also found that lenders are becoming less inclined to give mortgages to low-income borrowers.
