Boosting the UK Property market

The stamp duty holiday has boosted the property market over the past 7 months. The tax holiday aimed to provide many benefits to UK citizens, including to:

• Improve the property market
• Encourage buyers to purchase new properties
• Provide financial support to struggling homeowners

Prior to the Covid-19 lockdown, UK house prices had declined for four months in a row. The stamp duty holiday aimed to halt this decline – and has successfully done so. Figures recently released by HMRC show that 105,630 residential transactions took place in October 2020. This makes it the busiest October in the last decade.

The tax holiday has therefore improved the property market by:

• Encouraging both upsizing and downsizing for homebuyers
• Boosting property development
• Ensuring that more first-time buyers can afford to move out

As a result of these positive effects, many want the Chancellor to extend the stamp duty holiday deadline even further. There is much debate over this.