24
Apr
Budget Special
Nick Churton of Mayfair Office comments upon the 2009
Budget.
"As far as the average home buyer and seller is concerned the
2009 Budget was rather a non-event.
Moves to kick-start stalled new housing projects; a beefed-up
mortgage rescue scheme; added support for shared equity mortgages
and much needed and very belated upgraded housing for our armed
forces are all to be welcomed. But they will hardly provide
great stimulus, and in the housing market with which most people
are involved – the sale and purchase of established homes
– there was really very little in the Chancellor’s
Budget to cheer about.
The government had a wonderful opportunity to re-think Stamp Duty
– if only just to install a new threshold of
£250,000. This would have provided a much-needed boost
to property market activity. Instead the Chancellor simply
chose to extend the temporary £175,000 level for another
twelve months, after which the cap will fall back to
£125,000. This move only maintains the status quo.
With the best will in the world it can’t really be regarded
as a stimulus package.
But the good news is that the market is improving at a very
encouraging rate without our government’s help. There
are sure signs of greater market activity and, in some market
areas, even a levelling off of prices from the steep slide we have
seen over the past months. Perhaps we are all better off
sorting out the property market ourselves without intervention from
our leaders. Perhaps we are better off with our free
market. After all, if the Budget has done one thing it has
shown that recent government involvement in many other areas of our
economy hasn’t helped much either.
So some crumbs of comfort for first time buyers in the Budget, but
higher earners may well decide to buy now while property prices are
at the bottom of a trough in order to avoid paying off larger
mortgages during a time of increased income taxation."
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