What Happens To The Property Market After Stamp Duty Sweeteners Are Cut?

4th June 2021

The clock is ticking and buyers across London are on edge desperate to make sure their property purchase completes before the 30th June Stamp Duty deadline.

Poor old solicitors are burning the midnight oil and getting it in the ear from estate agents doing their best to keep minds focused.

It’s fair to say that nerves are frayed.

It’s no wonder.

Buyers have been behaving likes it’s the Christmas sales on Oxford Street with up to £15,000 in savings to be had with the Chancellor’s Stamp Duty stimulus.


What happens if you are not going to complete by June 30th? 

All is not lost if a sale fails to get over the completion finish line by the 30th June.  The market is being weaned off the stimulus gradually and isn’t scheduled to be gone completely until the end of September.

But the signs are already there to see. 

In March, I conducted 44 viewings at a 3 bedroom house in Walthamstow.  Bonkers and a sign of the adrenaline rush hitting the market. 
Fast forward to last week and at a similar home at a similar price, viewer numbers had come down to 11.
A two bedroom house in a smart part of East Ham notched up 36 viewings in February over 10 days but a carbon copy of the house around the corner yielded just 13 viewers in late May.

I jest when I say ‘just’ 13 viewers.  This is a more normal, healthy figure in the market. 
Sure, there’s unquestionably fewer buyers at present but with the supply of available properties for sale extremely constrained combined low interest rates and sufficient buyer appetite, values will likely settle were they are.  Particularly for the most in demand properties – family homes with gardens.
There will likely be price renegotiation conversations between buyers and sellers that have missed out on completing their transaction in time. 
No doubt solicitors will bear the brunt of the blame if dates are missed and buyers will go cap in hand to sellers seeking financial help to cover the extra stamp duty bill they’re now liable for.

Property values have climbed 10.2% higher over the last 12 months according to the Office for National Statistics.  That’s the fastest annual rate of growth for 14 years.  But with stimulus now being cut, prices should plateau with month on month price rises becoming a thing of the past. 
I’d argue that’s no bad thing.