As the housing market remains in the doldrums, chatter inevitably turns to schemes and ideas that can help the market out. By ‘help’, we mean ways to make buying homes artificially more affordable, and in so doing create political capital by reigniting house price inflation. Below are some potential moves.
Stamp duty
This is a government favourite, and there have been a lot of column inches in trade and national press calling (again) for this ‘most hated tax’ to be dropped. The housebuilders are also calling for its removal as they seek yet more bailing out. This is a major contributor to the national tax take (in 2023 £11.7bn was collected), so cutting it in this fiscal environment would be ill-advised. Also, we know from bitter experience that cutting or suspending stamp duty is always inflationary for house prices.