Moving Home Advice’s in-house property expert, Russell Quirk, appeared on Nick Ferrari’s LBC breakfast show this morning to discuss the fortunes of the housing market in light of Rishi Sunak’s expected announcement that the stamp duty holiday will be extended to the end of June.
Nick Ferrari asked Russell what the impact of the stamp duty holiday has been so far, and how its inevitable end should best be handled.
“The impact has been significant,” Russell said. “Sunak turbocharged the property market when he decided to remove stamp duty for homes up to a value of £500,000. This offers an average saving of £4,000-5,000 for UK homebuyers with a maximum possible saving of around £12,000.
“A lot of people are now saying the holiday needs to come to an end, but we need to appreciate that that will leave a hole of around £9 billion, money which is very much needed at the moment.
“We also need to be careful not to end up back in a position where we are overheating the market – which we’ve done a couple of times in the last one or two decades. The reason we need to be particularly cautious is the ongoing lack of supply this country has. There just aren’t enough homes coming to market, which greatly exaggerates the effects of overheating.
“For now, though, the market is doing very nicely indeed. House prices rose by a massive 8% last year and transactions are going up and up, too. In December, we expect to see around 80,000 completions, but in December 2020 we saw £125,000 completions.
“All in all, the June extension is great. You can probably hear the champagne corks popping up and down the country as agents celebrate the extension. However, let’s not forget, when June arrives, we’re still going to be left with a cliff edge.”
If you have any questions for Russell Quirk, regarding the end of stamp duty or any other property-related issue, drop us a message in the comments section below and he will get right back to you.
