News Headlines
Housebuilders Throw First Time Buyers a Lifeline (15th March 2005)
First time buyers are paying the price for Britain’s soaring housing market. With the latest figures revealing the number of first time buyers has collapsed as prices escalate out of their reach, Britain’s housebuilders are making a determined effort to help them out. More...
U.K. targets first-time homebuyers (15th March 2005)
LONDON (MarketWatch) - Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announced in his budget speech Wednesday that he will lift the threshold for the government tax on property transactions, known as stamp duty, to 120,000 pounds from the current 60,000 pounds. More...
Chancellor offers help to first-time buyers (15th March 2005)
Today's budget included plans to help 20,000 households get a foot on the property ladder.
Under a new joint venture with the Council of Mortgage Lenders - first revealed last year by SocietyGuardian.co.uk - first-time buyers will be offered interest free loans for the purchase of an equity share in a new home.
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First-time house-buyers hot spot (14th March 2005)
East Croydon has been named as one of the top five areas in London for first-time buyers to get a foot on the property ladder.
But with the average price of a one bedroom flat around £150,000, buying a property in East Croydon area could be a pipedream for many buyers.
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First-time buyers receive stamp duty boost (13th March 2005)
First-time buyers received a much need boost in today's Budget, after Gordon Brown doubled the lower threshold for stamp duty.
Until now stamp duty was paid on almost all properties worth more than £60,000 at a rate of one per cent.
However, today the Chancellor increased the lower threshold from £60,000 to £120,000, to ease the path of first-time buyers onto the property ladder.
The minimum threshold was last increased in 1993.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders estimated that this change will mean around 370,000 more home-buyers will escape stamp duty each year.
But some in the housing industry have expressed a desire for the level to have been increased even further, particularly as the change will have limited effect in the south of England.
Ahead of today's Budget, many mortgage lenders were calling for the lower threshold to be increased to £150,000.
Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents, said: "The Chancellor should be praised for finally responding to the overwhelming pressure from the housing industry to update the archaic stamp duty system.
"However this is the increase we should have seen five years ago and we are still long overdue a real change to the thresholds."
Mr King claimed that the change to stamp duty is only a "first step in the right direction" and will prove "irrelevant" to those wanting to buy property in London and the South East.
"With average house prices across the UK now 150 per cent higher than when the base level was last amended in 1993, a more significant increase in the minimum threshold to £150,000 was needed to make any real difference to the majority of homebuyers," he added.
Only one in 25 properties sold in London last year would result in no stamp duty being paid at the new level, whereas two thirds of properties sold in 2004 the North East cost less than £120,000 More...
Budget run-up - Comment (13th March 2005)
Anyone hoping for pre-election giveaways from chancellor Gordon Brown on Wednesday would have been disappointed.
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Brown woos pensioners and first-time buyers (11th March 2005)
Gordon Brown on Wednesday targeted pensioners, parents and first-time buyers in a pre-election Budget that had little room for large give-aways in the face of tight public finances.
But less than two months ahead of the general election expected in May, the chancellor managed to target key voter groups by reallocating funds raised from business through cracking down on tax avoidance and bringing forward North Sea oil taxes
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Long-term fixed rate mortgages top for buy-to-let (11th March 2005)
Five- and ten-year fixed rate mortgages are frequently the best value deal available in the buy-to-let mortgage sector, a new survey has found.
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Stamp Duty Move Welcomed (11th March 2005)
Chancellor Gordon Brown today answered calls to help cash-strapped home buyers – doubling the stamp duty threshold from £60,000 to £120,000.
The move exceeded the expectations of many within the industry who had predicted a rise to £100,000.
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Nationwide savings and mortgages happy with Budget (10th March 2005)
Nationwide Building Society's savings and mortgage wings have welcomed this afternoon's Budget.
Gordon Brown set out plans to raise the stamp duty threshold from £60,000 to £120,000.
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