BREAKING NEWS – top 5 stories 21/06/2021
JUST EIGHT WORKING DAYS TO END OF STAMP DUTY HOLIDAY
The 30th of June 2021, is the hard stop date for the full SDLT ‘holiday’ that the Chancellor put in place, and it coming upon all of the those in the sector at a pace. To get the benefit, up to £15,000 of relief, properties need to complete on or before the 30th of June 2021.
It will be very interesting to see what shape the market is in, when the dust settles and when in three months times, the ‘up to 250,000’ tapered SDLT relief is also phased out at the end of September. Will these stimuluses’ take the steam out of the housing market, as they famously did in 1988, with the finishing of MIRAS.
RENT CHECKS IN PERSON PUT ON HOLD FOR ANOTHER TWO MONTHS
Face to face – Right to rent checks have been pushed back by two months, they were to be phased back in now, following their curtailment during covid. This means checks by video conference calls will still be allowed, during the ‘Delta Variant’ phase of the pandemic.
WILL PROPERTY AGENTS GET GOVERNMENT BACKING TO WORK FROM HOME?
In what appeared an off the cuff comment, Minster Michael Gove whilst being interviewed by Radio Four made the comment that, “Now, I suspect – and I’m not advocating this, I’m just thinking of the future – I suspect it may be the case that we may see different workplaces allowing people to work from home at certain points as well as coming into the office. I think there may be changes to the way that we live.”
Does this mean that number 10 will be powering a new wave of working from home WFH, and if so, what will agency be looking like?
NEW INSTRUCTIONS COMING TO THE MARKET SLOWS
Having taken a number of soundings across the UK from agents, it would appear that the number of new listings at branch level is around 20% lower than is seasonally normal. Blame it on the Euro’s, blame it on other factors, the reality is with agent pipelines depleting, they need new stock to continue trading.
STAMP DUTY HELPS NEARLY 40% MOVE HOME
Though the final analysis is not yet in – it appears that nearly one in four people who moved during the so called SDLT holiday period, have in some way profited by the government initiative.
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