Another Stamp duty freeze/cut?

[Designhelp]

Would like to know if anyone has any more info in this? Appreciate likely to be speculation at this point.

www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/sep/21/liz-truss-stamp-duty-cut-emergency-budget-uk-politics-live#comments

FTB - surely the first thing is to see if it applies to you. It may be that properties already exchanged can't benefit?

I can't see CGT being changed in a mini budget but I wouldn't write a blank cheque. Surely just ask to delay completion and phrase it as "in case any party can benefit". That way, if there's a cut to CGT, they benefit too.

What on earth is their argument for needing to do this? Does the housing market really need more stimulation?

As someone who completed last Monday I selfishly would be heartbroken if this goes ahead. Independent of that though I really don't see the need?

Don't be. You'd just have paid more for the property. Did you look at prices in the feeding frenzy? Two bed flats going for 50k over asking.

Hi all,

if you need a laugh / to join us in a sob, yesterday we paid £23,500 in stamp duty.

know we’re lucky to have a property over 500k, but I can’t tell you how gutted and sick to our stomachs we feel :(

we had been saving for 8 years

I am not sure what you mean - the property prices around here had gone up around £30k on a £300k house due to the 'stamp duty frenzy' - and prices stayed high after the relief ended. So people who bought in the last year got the worst of both worlds. Inflated prices AND had to pay SDLT.

Surely she would have to make it effective immediately or at least very very shortly eg next week, as anyone close to complete such as yourself is going to want to stall now following Friday’s announcement - the market will therefore stall whilst everyone waits for the stamp duty cut to come into effect. I imagine it will be effective immediately or v v swiftly to avoid mass stagnation

Tories just love boosting house prices...

It's good for people who see property as an investment rather than a roof over their head, and knowing that their house is worth ££££ is apparently a feel-good thing for people who are too thick to recognise the negative impacts.

It’s not just about knowing it’s worth more - it’s also about being able to borrow more against it. As long as you pass the affordability test, you can now take several thousand £ out of your house to invest in something else (like another house). And so the cycle continues.

Think about the fact if there was a stamp duty cut the property would probably have been 50k more...

Hi,

well i completed today and paid around 34k in stamp duty. collected the keys today, went to view the house, drove back to where im currently staying and on the way back hear about this stamp duty cut :-)

I'm due to complete my purchase on Friday 30 September so will either just miss it, or just make it. My extended mortgage offer expires that day, so if I don't complete then, I'll be back into the scrum of people trying to buy the very few houses on the market.

On balance, I'd really rather they didn't cut stamp duty, as I've budgeted into my current purchase anyway, and I don't think it will help buyers in the long term, unless they do away with it altogether (which is pretty unlikely).

I'm really bastard annoyed. We completed a fortnight ago and could've really done with a stamp duty saving.

People placing blame on SDLT holiday in inflating prices clearly don’t understand the full picture. House price inflation happened mostly because of the £450b printed by the government to pay healthy people to sit at home and do nothing. Stamp duty holiday was only a small part of it. The money to buy the houses had Tom come from somewhere. And the printing machine was hard at it. If you don’t understand the full picture, you’ll blame the wrong factor and it will happen again.

The SDLT holiday was to simulate the housing market as due to Covid it was shut down, a further SDLT holiday shows how desperate the Government are to prop up the housing market, not sure throwing money at it will help long term, as Chancellor Lamont found out. Another interest rate rise expected today, property market is falling in US & China.

Quite - can anyone point to the dip in prices that occurred after the SDLT holiday ended? There certainly wasn't one here so everyone is still paying inflated prices. I don't think another holiday will help at all in general but I can't say that I won't be pleased to personally save several thousand!

Of course, as someone who's selling to buy somewhere much more expensive what would really help/have helped is a huge crash in prices but I'm not sure the Tories will stand by and let that happen.

Prices since the end of the SDLT have gone crazy round here. They didn't just stay the same, the went up and up. We were hoping to exchange today. But we may wait until Monday (although I am torn with just getting it done so we have some protection - previous FTB pulled out at the very last minute because they had found another property but didn't actually tell us until we were due to exchange). Our EA is expecting any cuts to be just for FTB or people downsizing (none of those are us).

Just paid £43,000 on stamp duty last month. Pleased we've completed though as nothing is coming on the market.

Wow, that's unbelievable behaviour of your previous buyer! I hope they house they did buy falls down.

Totally agree!!!!!!

Why on Earth would the government cut stamp duty for those downsizing? They’re about the only people who will do well in the current market and have cash to spare!

Because downsizers tend to be older, and older people are the key tory demographic in voting terms.

And they'll justify it as an encouragement for people to free up larger homes, of which there is a shortage. So it'll look good.

I see, assuming the Telegraph is being used as the leak recipient of the day, that people moving to more energy efficient homes will also benefit.

As we're not FTB, buying a larger house with an unimpressive EPC, I think we'll be lucky to see anything coming out of this! But our buyers, who have already got 10k off the price post-survey, will cash in - or will they? They bought with the proceeds of an inherited house sale, so will that mean they aren't not actually FTBs?

House prices will only ever go up because good houses are in limited supply. That is why property is always a sure winner in terms of long term investment. A stamp duty will cause prices to rise quicker than they otherwise would have but unless mortgages are unsustainable you will not see a house price crash.

And they'll justify it as an encouragement for people to free up larger homes, of which there is a shortage. So it'll look good.

I don’t think it will look good at all!

Helping first-time buyers would look good, but most of them are excused from paying stamp duty anyway. So I think either every buyer should get a stamp duty holiday/tapered discount or no one should.