The stamp duty holiday is coming to an end at the end of this year; all property, money and finance newspapers, blogs and industry magazines are speculating the impact of the holiday on the property market. While some are calling for an extension to the stamp duty holiday to further stimulate the market, others question the number of homeowners who benefited from this tax relief.
Between 2 September 2008 (when the holiday took effect) and 1 September 2009, the tax relief saved property buyers only £173 million, compared to the £600 million forecast by the government. It is not thought that the last three months of 2009 will treble the actual figure to meet the Government predictions
The London property market was never likely to benefit from the stamp duty holiday anyway where homebuyers are unlikely to find a house under stamp duty holiday threshold of £175,000.
There may be signs of a scramble to buy before the deadline and the return to the £125000 level, for the first time buyer, or those home buyers in other areas of the country. These are perhaps the areas that most need the relief and would most benefit from an extension of the holiday. It has been argued that this is benefit enough. However the more popular line this week has been the need to regionalise such tax relief in the future, so that those areas of the country where housing is more expensive should benefit from a higher threshold, so that all geographical areas of the market are stimulated, and all tax payers/ homebuyers get the benefit.