{"id":209539,"date":"2025-01-07T07:58:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T07:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/07\/house-prices-stamp-duty-changes-will-motivate-buyers-says-the-halifax\/"},"modified":"2025-01-07T07:58:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T07:58:19","slug":"house-prices-stamp-duty-changes-will-motivate-buyers-says-the-halifax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/07\/house-prices-stamp-duty-changes-will-motivate-buyers-says-the-halifax\/","title":{"rendered":"House prices: Stamp duty changes will motivate buyers, says the Halifax"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Upcoming changes to stamp duty will “motivate” first-time buyers to buy a property, according to the Halifax.<\/p>\n

The average price of a UK home ended 2024 close to the \u00a3300,000 mark, the UK’s biggest mortgage broker said.<\/p>\n

Its calculations suggested UK house prices increased by 3.3% when comparing the end of the year to the start, although the average value dipped slightly in December.<\/p>\n

It means the average home now costs \u00a3297,166, it added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The figures come a few days after rival lender, the Nationwide, said that the UK housing market had been “remarkably resilient”<\/a> in 2024, with a 4.7% increase in prices at the end of the year compared with the start.<\/p>\n

The two lenders use their own mortgage data, and have slightly differing criteria when calculating house prices, so the Nationwide puts the average property price at almost \u00a3270,000.<\/p>\n

Both lenders do not include buyers who purchase homes with cash, or buy-to-let deals, in their estimates. Cash buyers account for about a third of housing sales.<\/p>\n

The Halifax estimate of the average home now costing close to \u00a3300,000 will be met with dismay by many first-time buyers, but comes in the context of sharp differences in prices in different parts of the country.<\/p>\n

However, Amanda Bryden, head of mortgages at the Halifax, said stamp duty changes in April would give prospective first-time buyers “even greater motivation to get on the housing ladder and bring any home-buying plans forward”.<\/p>\n

“Mortgage affordability will remain a challenge for many,” she said.<\/p>\n

“However, providing employment conditions don’t deteriorate markedly from a more recent softening, buyer demand should hold up relatively well and, taking all this into account, we’re continuing to anticipate modest house price growth this year.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Housing experts expect sales to increase over the next few months, ahead of the stamp duty changes, before falling away afterwards.<\/p>\n

House buyers in England and Northern Ireland will start paying stamp duty on properties over \u00a3125,000, instead of over \u00a3250,000 at the moment.<\/p>\n

First-time buyers currently pay no stamp duty on homes up to \u00a3425,000, but this will drop to \u00a3300,000 in April.<\/p>\n

There is also an expectation of a steady reduction in interest rates during 2024, potentially starting with a cut in February, which could mean lenders cutting the cost of new fixed mortgage deals in anticipation.<\/p>\n

However, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey recently said “the world is too uncertain” to make accurate predictions of when interest rates will fall, and by how much.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Upcoming changes to stamp duty will “motivate” first-time buyers to buy a property, according to the Halifax. The average price of a UK home ended 2024 close to the \u00a3300,000 mark, the UK’s biggest mortgage broker said. Its calculations suggested UK house prices increased by 3.3% when comparing the end of the year to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/4c19\/live\/8f68eca0-cc21-11ef-b733-532f7fefade3.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[20629,3157,45819,79,1222,2364,10093],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209541,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209539\/revisions\/209541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}