Estate agents are calling for the government to extend the current stamp duty relief thresholds to allow buyers currently in the process of acquiring a property more time to get the deal done without being hit by a higher property levy.
It comes as a homebuyers in England and Northern Ireland on track to miss the looming deadline expect to fork out an extra £6,512 on average for their purchase, resulting in a surge in demand for mortgages.
Barclays mortgage data shows that average monthly completions have increased 26% in the wake of the Autumn Budget when the changes were announced. This is largely driven by a 59% surge in first-time buyer purchases, whose share of completions has risen seven percentage points, from 29% to 36%.
Changes to the stamp duty bands are also limiting the choice of property stock available to first timers. Barclays data shows that demand for homes above the current stamp duty threshold of £425,000 has steadily declined each month, with completions in this bracket dropping from 21% in October 2024 to 16% in February 2025.
Among those with a purchase in progress, nearly one in eight (12%) say they will pull out if they do not complete before the end of March. Meanwhile, a fifth (21%) of prospective movers say that they will now look to buy a smaller property to mitigate costs, with 18% changing the location of their search to a more affordable area.
Sian McIntyre, managing director of Mortgages and Savings at Barclays, said: “Our latest data indicates that prospective buyers are adapting their behaviour to get ahead of some of the volatility in the market. Encouragingly, amidst rising house prices, uncertainty around interest rates, and the upcoming changes to stamp duty, consumer confidence in the housing market is staying the course.”
A separate survey of more than 400 estate agents has found that 72% of estate agents have noted increased urgency from buyers to complete by 31st March.
Whilst most buyers have factored in a stamp duty increase into their financial planning, one in five (21%) have not, leaving themselves in potential financial turmoil should they miss next month’s deadline to complete, the study found.
Colby Short, co-founder and CEO of GetAgent.co.uk, which commissioned the research, commented: “With the final countdown now upon us, we’re starting to see a degree of mass hysteria being generated around the stamp duty deadline and the plight of those buyers who fail to complete by 31st March.”
Read the orginal article: https://propertyindustryeye.com/estate-agents-call-for-stamp-duty-extension/
