| UK
House Prices Situation: Strong
UK
House Prices Forecast: Continued slower growth into
2007
Stamp
Duty Revenue Up By 175% in Six Years
There
was widespread disappointment amongst housing
industry insiders this week after the Chancellor,
Gordon Brown, failed to announce any updates to the
stamp duty system in his Pre-Budget Report on Wednesday.
Stamp
duty is payable on house purchases over £125,000,
with the top threshold set at £250,000. A recent
report from the Halifax showed that the steady
increase in the number of homes valued at
over £250,000 has meant that revenue from the
highest level of stamp duty has increased by 175% over
the last six years.
Homes
valued below £125,000 are exempt from stamp duty,
but very few homes now fall into this category, and
it was hoped that the Chancellor might update the thresholds
or consider linking them to inflation.
Families
Stay Put As Home Buyer Profiles Change
While
many mortgage lenders still seem to be focusing their
products on married couples with children, new research
carried out by the Birmingham Midshires suggests that
the profile of home buyers is changing, and that mortgage
lenders will need to adapt to this.
Of
the 13% of people who were planning to buy a home in
the next 12 months, almost 20% were single and 21% were
same-sex couples looking to buy together. In addition,
nearly 25% of those planning to move were under thirty
and 28% of likely buyers were looking to buy as an investment.
A
final twist on the traditional recipe was that 10% of
those planning to move in the next year were doing so
to downsize to a small, cheaper property.
Unprecedented
House Price Rises in Northern Ireland
House
prices in Northern Ireland have risen by an
average of 32% in the last year, with some areas seeing
rises of up to 65%, according to the latest University
of Ulster quarterly house price index.
Meanwhile
local politicians, such as the SDLP's Patsy McGlone,
have requested a meeting with mortgage lenders to discuss
the growing number of house repossessions – up
130% since 2001.
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