John O'Hare, founder, CTC Surveying

Jul 14 2010 by Jez Davison, Evening Gazette

Quantity surveyor John O'Hare is still working with footballers long after his childhood dream of playing for Manchester United died. Jez Davison reports.

JOHN O'Hare can see the irony of making money from helping others save theirs.

After more than a decade in the building trade, the Mancunian entrepreneur launched CTC Surveying two years ago to help people get charged a fair price for building work.

The Stokesley-based firm generates annual revenues of around £100,000 - not bad going for a one-man operation.

But although clients’ pennies are at the heart of John’s business philosophy, he insists he’s not overly motivated by the lure of the loot.

“My aim is to give people the opportunity to see costs transparently. I make builders justify their price.”

He claims he can shelve up to 30% off homeowners’ bills by bartering with builders.

But three quarters of his work is derived from corporate clients, whom he advises on sustainability issues and energy-efficient building projects.

Some publicly-funded green schemes are likely to be shelved as the Government looks to whittle down Britain’s £156bn budget deficit.

Last week senior officials met with heavyweight construction suppliers to renegotiate contracts agreed under Labour - with the likely outcome a reduction in companies’ income.

John acknowledges this may be just the start of another round of belt-tightening for the sector, which was one of the worst affected by the recession.

Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme, from which several Teesside contractors have reaped lucrative business, has already been shelved.

“There has been definite signs of improvement but we don’t know what will happen with public sector spending cuts. That will have a big impact on the private sector.”

He fears that some green building projects may never reap gold due to a lack of consumer demand and lengthy lead-in times for return on investment.

“On some projects it might take five to 10 years to get the money back,” he says. “Some companies will ask whether it’s worth it.”

John has been asking himself some searching questions, including how to navigate a fledgling enterprise through an economic tsunami.

To mitigate the effects of public spending cuts on his business, he has branched into private residential development with the aim of building four to 10 sustainable homes a year.

The building trade is all John has known since leaving Sheffield Hallam University with a degree in quantity surveying.

But it could have been so different had the father-of-three followed his childhood dream of becoming a professional footballer.

His parents, however, convinced him to continue his studies.

“Football was like a pipe dream to my parents. They are Irish immigrants and believed in education, so they wanted me to study at the same time as playing football.

“I’ll be the same with my lads. I’m a strong believer in education.

“It could have something to do with the fact that I’m married to a teacher!”

After graduating he spent three years at Barratt Homes in Leeds and Manchester before a seven-year stint at housebuilder Wimpey, where he was eventually transferred to Teesside.

Following the closure of Wimpey’s Yarm office, he worked on schemes for Persimmon in Newton Aycliffe before joining City Lofts, the city centre developer that became a high-profile casualty of the credit crunch.

The company had expanded rapidly during the housing boom before its exposure to plummeting property values forced it to call in the administrators in 2008 - just months after John left to go solo.

“The owners told me to get out. They could see what was coming.”

He acknowledges the building market remains subdued due to a lack of confidence and lenders’ reticence to get their fingers burnt.

“[Before the credit crunch] you could get funding if you had a reasonable site. Now you need a golden nugget site before they will part with their money.”

Although the building landscape has altered irrevocably since the heady pre-2007 building boom, John won’t change his core business philosophy of saving money for clients - including pro footballers.

He might not have made it onto the pitch with them but now he’s helping them to tackle their housing budgets.

“Some footballers - and others - have little understanding of build costs. But why should somebody who earns well have to pay a lot more for the same building job than another client?”