BREAKING NEWS – top 4 stories 22/07/2021
Daily bite-sized proptech and real estate news in partnership with Proptech-X. Today, Stanton looks at Resolution Foundation, HMRC, Aviva’s latest research and more.
- Resolution Foundation says pandemic made the rich even richer
- The HMRC net draws in on landlords not paying taxes
- Aviva suggests widescale buyer’s remorse after moving in to dream homes
- Will new coronavirus variants slow the property market?
Resolution Foundation says pandemic made the rich even richer
The Resolution Foundation, an independent think-tank focused on improving living standards for those on low to middle incomes, has been doing some deep thinking about the pandemic and who it helped…and who got squeezed.
Its most recent analysis suggests that High Net Worth (HNW) individuals, especially those in the capital, enjoyed a rise in their standard of living. This could be, in part, due to their higher probability of being in bullish tech-adjacent industries, or because they owned property, which has risen by over 10% in the last year.
In contrast, the less well-off in society appear to be getting even less well-off in real terms. Of course, many work in industries like the entertainment sector, which have been severely impacted by the pandemic.
The HMRC net draws in on landlords not paying taxes
As the reach of technology widens, landlords who fail to disclose that they are landlords and do not pay their taxes may find HMRC breathing down their necks.
Zena Hanks at Saffery Champness said: “HMRC’s use of technology to home in on suspected unpaid tax is only going to increase, with data and information availability improving all the time, and the direction of travel is likely to be an ever-greater expectation, even demand, for tax to be paid in real-time.
“Accurate record-keeping is essential, as is planning ahead for the cashflow implications of real time payments.”
Aviva suggests widescale buyer’s remorse after moving in to dream homes
In a study of 2,200 homebuyers carried out by Aviva, nearly 70% felt pressured to buy their property quickly. That figure rose to 94% for those who purchased during the pandemic.
Other key points found were that buyers typically took 46 minutes to view a property before pulling the trigger, and over 30% of buyers during the pandemic did so due to the SDLT holiday.
Will new coronavirus variants slow the property market?
Following the huge amount of sales agreed, stimulated in large part by the SDLT holiday, the need to move into homes with gardens, or homes with adequate space to work from home, the market appears to be moving at a much slower pace.
Some industry commentators are wondering if new coronavirus variants are going to topple the housing market.
Whilst the UK economy seems to be opening up, and with the end of furlough just around the corner, if a new wave of infections continues to rise, will the fear of spreading the mutant virus make homeowners take up the drawbridge until business resumes as “normal”?
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