Housing: Darling's missed opportunity

Some more Budget thoughts.
It seems to me that Alistair Darling has not moved fast enough or hard enough with the housing market.
Housing has been one of the central drivers of our economy in recent years, and keeping it moving is important for all sorts of reasons – as a driver of the economy, as a means of aiding people who want to move jobs, for example.
Right now, there are troubling signs of a housing market slowing to a crawl – new housebuilders upping discounts because of slow sales, and estate agents talking of clients who won’t make offers until they’ve sold first (which is a vicious circle).
Three issues are causing this apparent paralysis: general economic uncertainty, banks and building societies taking a tougher policy on mortgages, and first-time buyers struggling to get a foot on the ladder.
Alistair Darling made some encouraging noises about helping the housing market in today’s Budget, but hard action right now was thin on the ground.
He will give teachers and nurses easier access to shared-ownership mortgages (which should help them as first-time buyers), while there’s going to be an initiative aimed at encouraging banks and building societies to place much more emphasis on long-term fixed rate mortgages (rather than those daft ‘never mind the sky-high arrangement fee just look at the low rate’ deals).
The theory here is that long-term mortgage deals will leave borrowers less exposed to the natural fluctuations in interest rates.
But it didn’t look to me like there was anything there that’s going to help the housing market out of its current rut.
Now, the Chancellor may well argue that the current rut is the result of the credit crunch and the solution lies outside housing policy.
Up to a point. Just as central banks (with Government approval) have been throwing money at banks in a bid to help them get through the credit crunch, so one can argue that the Government ought to consider some short-term measures to get the housing market into gear.
What he offered today was very limited in scope: easier access for only certain people to shared ownership mortgages (which means you own only a share of your home) with Stamp Duty not payable until your share of the property goes above a certain level.
That’s tinkering at the margins, and so is a promise to ‘encourage’ more fixed-rate mortgages.
What the market needed was something of the magnitude of all Stamp Duty payments either being delayed or staggered so that buyers weren’t confronted with what’s often a sizeable upfront cost (especially above £250,000).
Or how about canning Home Improvement Packs, which cost each seller £300-400 but tell the buyer little they couldn’t have guessed anyway?
If house prices fall back (and they are doing) that's probably no bad thing. But people’s finances are being severely squeezed right now, and under-pressure banks are reluctant to translate reduced interest rates into cheaper mortgage deals.
If the credit crunch eases (and that's a big if) this problem may solve itself. But Mr Darling needs to keep a very close eye on the housing market.