Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent)
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I have a question that is supplementary to the Chairman's excellent question. I have more than 20 years of experience in the area of valuations going back to the 1980s and 1990s. Valuations by so-called auctioneers and valuers in this country have been very wide of the embedded and true benchmark of the inverse yield value of a property. As Mr. Brown said, people have to pay a rent for living no matter who owns the property. If we take a four-bedroom semi-detached suburban house - in Stillorgan or Kilmacud, for example - the maximum rental value of which is €2,000 per month or €24,000 per year, a 7% yield will give a maximum value of €360,000. It is because of the very small volume on the market at this time that prices have been bid up. As Mr. Ryan said, the volume of lending went down last year. The public perception is that prices are going up, but it is not a sustainable increase because it is not related to the inverse of rental yields. A craziness in perceptions is beginning to take hold again. Do the delegates agree there should be a brake applied at the level of 15 times maintainable rent?