THE GIVEAWAY GOES ON!
Support for home buyers Tax cut remains for pubs and bars STAMP DUTY HOLIDAY Jobs scheme runs into autumn Benefit boost avoids the axe £ 7bn to help firms survive £ 5bn of grants to let them thrive
ESTATE agents are gearing up for a second housing mini-boom after the Chancellor extended the stamp duty holiday until the end of June.
It means an extra 300,000 home buyers could benefit from the break.
House hunters swarmed property websites within minutes of the announcement, suggesting the market may once again go into overdrive.
The extension was widely anticipated, but Rishi Sunak went further than expected by announcing an additional tapering-off period.
Property experts said the news would be a ‘huge relief’ to buyers stuck in transaction bottlenecks and would save up to 100,000 sales from collapse. It prompted the Office for Budget Responsibility to predict house prices would grow by 5 per cent this year, a startling turnaround from its November forecast of a 4 per cent fall.
The holiday means no tax is paid on properties worth up to £500,000, offering savings of up to £15,000. It was introduced in July and had been due to end on March 31, but will now be extended in England and Northern Ireland until June 30. The threshold will then be reduced to £250,000 until September 30, before returning to its normal level of £125,000.
Property website Rightmove said 45 per cent of buyers would pay no stamp duty during the ‘tapering off’ period.
Homeowners Lauren and Luke Elliott said the announcement should save them thousands of pounds when they move house later this year. They believe it also helped sell their current home because they received an offer on it shortly after Mr Sunak’s statement yesterday.
Mr and Mrs Elliott, from Solihull, who run their own music school called Music Monsters, have sold their property for £285,000 and are looking to buy a new home for around £350,000. Mrs Elliott, 30, said: ‘It’s absolutely brilliant news for us and hopefully means we’ll be able to save some money on our next property, too. We definitely should be able to move in time for the next deadline now.’
Rightmove reported an 85 per cent spike in users of its mortgage calculator and a 16 per cent jump in overall traffic within half an hour of the Chancellor’s speech.
The initial tax break sparked a frenzy of activity and pushed prices to record highs. But it also caused massive backlogs and prompted fears that sales worth up to £1.5 billion could collapse if they missed the March deadline.
Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s property expert, said one in five deals agreed in July last year still hadn’t been completed. He added: ‘This three-month extension will come as a huge relief for those people who have been going through the sales process since last year and were always expecting to make use of the stamp duty savings.’
Mr Sunak also announced that the Treasury would back lenders offering loans to buyers with a deposit of just 5 per cent.
But critics said the policy did nothing to make homes more affordable and – coupled with the stamp duty holiday extension – would push prices further out of reach for many. Polly Neate, chief executive at housing charity Shelter, said two thirds of private renters had ‘no savings at all’ and still wouldn’t be able to ‘scrape together’ a 5 per cent deposit.