Over recent months industry officials, housing developers, and the government have been desperately looking at ways to breathe life back onto the housing market, after house sales plummeted to record lows and estate agents reported average property sales equating to less than one home per week. With a number of factors affecting the housing market in the UK industry officials have been left with the difficult task of working out just how the industry can be boosted.

Recently the government announced that it was thinking of suspending stamp duty on properties up to a certain value in order to try and boost confidence. However, rather than improving the situation this caused even more damage because the government decided to delay confirmation of this move until the autumn. Many buyers who had been looking to buy and even some that had put in offers decided to wait or pull out in case they could save money later in the year due to stamp duty suspension.

Due to this the government was forced to make its decision and announce the move earlier, and has decided to suspend stamp duty on properties up to the value of £175,000 for a period of twelve months. Stamp duty equates to 1% of the property value, and was already exempt on properties up to £125,000, so the threshold has only been increased by £50,000, and the maximum saving would be £1750.

However, whilst this saving may be enough for some consumers to take the plunge and buy whilst the going is good, industry experts have expressed concern that buyers in areas such as London cannot benefit because the average house price there is so much higher than the maximum exemption threshold.

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