200,000 first time buyers helped by Stamp Duty holiday

Posted in 'Mortgages' by Barry Stamp

03 July 2012

Nationwide estimates that more than 200,000 first time buyers have benefited from the recently expired stamp duty holiday over the last two years, saving a total of nearly £375m – an average of £1,800 per transaction.

It reports that lending to first time buyers in March totalled £3bn, an increase of 40% above usual levels, and the number of purchases between the stamp-duty crucial band of £125,000 and £250,000 was 63%, up 13% on usual levels.

Figures published by the Nationwide yesterday also reveal that house prices have fallen 1.5% over the past 12 months.

Robert Gardner, the Chief Economist at Nationwide says, “House prices declined by 0.6% in June, taking the annual pace of house price growth down to -1.5%, the lowest since August 2009. The slightly weaker trend we’ve observed since March is unsurprising, given the difficult economic backdrop, with the UK economy dipping back into recession at the start of the year and few signs of a near term rebound.”

” Part of the weakness in house prices may also relate to the ending of the stamp duty holiday in March, which provided a temporary boost in early 2012, as buyers brought forward purchases that would otherwise have taken place later in the year.”

Nationwide predicts that prices will remain flat, a far cry from the wildly differing forecast given by BNP Paribas and by Coutts only last week.

Barry Stamp is a co-founder of Checkmyfile and is a Chartered Banker and a Fellow of the Institute of Credit Management. He can be contacted at barry.stamp@checkmyfile.com.