Member Article

Stamping out the problems for first-time buyers?

Jeremy O’Connor, MD of Stockton-based Adore Properties, gives his reaction to Philip Hammond’s 2017 budget

On the surface the Chancellor’s announcements on housing, left to the end after a budget peppered with puns, is promising. A £44bn capital investment in housing, promises for 300,000 properties to be built each year by mid-2020 and, most surprising of all, an immediate scrapping of Stamp Duty for first-time buyers on properties worth up to £300,000 or the first £300,000 on properties worth up to £500,000, are all steps in the right direction.

The plans sound great on paper however caution should be heeded. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has given a warning that the main beneficiaries of the Stamp Duty change will be existing homeowners, with an expected 0.3% rise in house prices. We have also had commitments to housing levels before that have failed to live up to expectation, so the 300,000 pledge is viewed with cautious optimism.

For me, the stat that caught my attention most across the entire budget is the one that the number of young people who own a home has fallen from 59% to 38%. This is a worrying decline and sadly reflective of what we have seen in the local housing market, despite a good level of activity in the Teesside market overall.

They say the first step to solving any problem is recognising you have one and, with the measures that came out yesterday, it’s clear that the government has recognised the first-time buyer conundrum – what remains to be seen is if the fixes they’ve put in place will prove to be smart solutions.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Adore Properties - Stockton .