With house-hunters out and about, first-time buyers active, and government doing its best to stimulate the housing market, things are beginning to look brighter once again for anyone with an interest in property.
Let’s take a brief look at some of the news items shaping the present course of events.
Buyers leave London for more space
Now free to spread their wings and enjoy some time outdoors once again, house-hunters are looking to escape central London locations. Instead, a reported 83% are looking for homes in villages and 90% in countryside locations in the west and southwest, according to Property Industry Eye on the 25th of June.
The trend is confirmed by the number of new buyers signing up with estate agents outside the capital – 32% currently have addresses in London, compared to 21% of such house-hunters in 2019.
The most affordable homes to buy in Britain
With the property market on the move once again, it might be time to consider just how affordable your next home is likely to be.
In some parts of the country, for example, you might be able to get a foot on the property ladder for little more than twice your salary, reports the Mirror in a story on the 7th of July. Contrast this with other parts of the country, warns the newspaper, where you may have to spend up to ten times’ your salary just to afford a two-bedroomed flat.
The article lists the most affordable places in which to buy a home in the UK. Most of these are in the north of England (particularly County Durham) or Ayrshire in Scotland, plus the Rhondda Valley in South Wales. In all of these places, homes may be bought for prices as low as between 2 and 3 times local salaries.
Temporary Stamp Duty cut
During his mini-budget on the 8th of July, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a temporary Stamp Duty holiday from now until the end of March next year.
For this period only, no Stamp Duty at all will be payable on properties purchased for less than £500,000. In its report on the mini-budget, the Times newspaper estimated that the Stamp Duty holiday is likely to save buyers an average of £4,500 on the purchase of their home.
As we reported last month, cutting Stamp Duty is expected to provide a kickstart to the re-emerging housing market and, because it is only a temporary holiday, buyers will be expected to act sooner rather than later when the full rate of the tax is re-applied.
Included in the same mini-budget, the Chancellor also promised a total of £2 billion in “green homes” grants. Households will be able to apply for grants of up to £5,000 for up to two-thirds of the costs of fully insulating their homes. Low-income households will qualify for grants of up to £10,000 to cover the full 100% of such costs.
Increase in demand for overseas properties
Online property agents Rightmove recorded a record one million searches in a single day from site users for overseas property, according to a story in Property Wire last week.
The sites highest number of searches peaked in June and reached a year on year increase in volume of 28%. The overseas section of its website has been 41% busier than in June of 2019.
Property-hunters were looking either for holiday homes or ones to which they planned to relocate. The most popular locations were Spain, where searches are up 25% compared with last year, France (32% up), Portugal (24% up) and Italy (17% up).
A spokesman for the website conceded that a somewhat fickle British clientele meant that searches for holiday homes dipped when the UK was enjoying sunny weather and bounced back again when skies at home turned grey.
