Site costs rocket from 15% to 45% of house price

SITE costs have spiralled from between 10% and 15% of the overall house price before the boom, to anything from 40% to 45% today.

The only way of tackling site costs and ultimately house prices is to separate development and property rights and auction development or betterment rights for an area, a leading economic consultant has urged.

Variable length planning permission should also be granted, Jerome Casey said, to ensure building actually occurs and neither developers nor land owners sit on land, watching its value rise.