The impact of the Spending Review on Property

Posted on 3rd December 2015

It has been a week since George Osborne announced his Autumn Statement and Spending Review but what impact will it have on the property market?

The good news is that the housing budget is being doubled to £2 billion a year, in an attempt to deliver 400,000 new homes by the end of the decade. This  makes it the largest housebuilding scheme since the 1970s.

In London, there is also help for first time buyers.

Now for the bad news. With changes to pensions, the buy-to-let market continued growing from strength-to-strength with more and more people seeing a second property as a sensible investment and a reliable pension. Despite this, the government plans to introduce new stamp duty rates which will considerably increase the costs to new buyers. With properties up to £125,000, there is currently no stamp duty. However, from 1st April 2016, this will be levied at 3%. For homes valued from £125-250,000, the new tax will be 5%.

Those considering a buy-to-let purchase should act sooner rather than later to avoid these new taxes and save some money. If this is something you are considering, please contact your local office and put yourself on our investor list.