Ahead of the Chancellor’s autumn statement at 12.30 today, Ben Thompson, managing director of L&G’s mortgage club welcomed the expected pledge to help 100,000 assisted purchases, but said targeting new-build will limit the impact.
He said solely targeting new-build purchases will not get the housing market moving despite the benefits for the construction industry, which is likely to benefit the wider economy.
“Unfortunately for first-time buyers and those that wish to make their second house move it is now expensive to move on and for many the cost of this can prove prohibitive until equity levels rise again. Therefore whilst current dynamics prevail, these measures will create a lot of interest but might not be the silver bullet,” said Thompson.
Relaxing Stamp Duty for buyers at all levels of the housing market would help more people, said Thompson, despite the strain government coffers are under.
“Extending the FTB holiday and including some sort of relief for second-time buyer/first-time mover market is certainly something the Chancellor should consider in his forthcoming autumn statement,” he added.
The largest mutual, Nationwide also urged the Chancellor to extend Stamp Duty relief yesterday with its call to maintain the £250,000 relief threshold for first-time buyers, due to expire in March 2012.
