Stamp duty holiday - darling’s small package

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photo credit: Smabs Sputzer

The starving masses had hoped for a miracle, and they at least got a decent card trick. Yesterday UK chancellor Alistair Darling unveiled a package of measures to help the country’s housing market, which has been looking decidedly green around the gills for the last few months.

Darling’s headline medicine is a 12-month stamp duty holiday for homes costing less than £175,000 and ‘free’ loans for first-time buyers, plus help for households facing repossession while battling mortgage repayments.

‘Please sir, can I have some more?’

Reaction from agents, builders and banks was, unsurprisingly, par boiled as opposed to roasting hot. Most said the ideas were welcome and just about everyone said more was needed.

It does appear a bit limited, particularly given ministers pretty much had to do something with stamp duty after poorly-managed rumours over the tax caused a number of sales to collapse and more first-time buyers to go into hiding. Plus the ‘free’ loans for people purchasing a first home aren’t actually, er, free – an unspecified fee will have to be paid for taking them out after a certain amount of time. Oh, and they’ll only apply to households earning less than £60,000 a year.

‘Better than nothing’

But it’s better than what it looked like the market might get at one stage, ie, nothing. All Alistair has to do now is get his hair to match the colour of his eyebrows and it’s back to the good old days.

[tags]real estate,real estate investing,property,property investment[/tags]