Housing: the Government does its (Stamp) Duty

Whatever you think of the Government’s housing market rescue package, it amounts to one thing: concrete evidence that, up until last August’s credit crunch, a market built on one of the most basic needs in life had got completely out of hand.
Stupid prices at the top of the market were bound to filter down as equally insane lending led people to think it made sense to borrow their life away.
That’s all over now, but today’s announcements are, perhaps, the first serious attempt to start picking up the wreckage.
Put the politics to one side; what matters I whether it works for you, not Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling.
It’s right that the Government should concentrate on the lower reaches of the housing market, with Stamp Duty scrapped for a year on homes below £175,000 and a variety of loans (which could pay deposits) and shared ownership either for people trying to get that first foot on the ladder or those who can no longer afford their mortgage.
It’s all very well having an economy where some people got extremely rich on rising property values.
But that was bound to cascade down the property food chain and pull up prices of everything below…to the point where first-time buyers were finding a roof and four walls beyond their reach. So a market starved of mortgages collapsed under its own weight.
As ever with any Government announcement, we need to see the small print before we can decide whether this really is the rescue package it’s currently being spun as. Stamp at this level is one per cent, so it could save buyers up to £1,750 - no deal-breaker, but it helps (scrapping Home Improvement Packs would have helped by another few hundred quid, but the Government seems strangely attached to this universally derided initiative).
Today’ decisions will have instant implication for anyone selling their property in £175,000 to £185,000 territory: buyers may want you to either come down to below Stamp, or pay it for them.
As for people above these levels, the advice is simple: if you can, reduce your price. The sooner both buyers and sellers start talking a cut-price language, the sooner houses will start shifting.