Sandra Davidson’s Azeem Salemohamed compares June’s sales data to a year ago to examine the impact of the tax break on the east London market.
June has been an interesting month. As the stamp duty holiday on purchases over £500,000 came to an end on the 30th, solicitors certainly earned their fees with a hectic rush for completions.
But looking at the Rightmove figures for June, compared to a year ago, things don’t seem too different. June 2020 was the month when the housing market reopened after lockdown and we saw 1,440 properties on the market in our patch (compared to 1,455 last month).
With so much pent-up activity while the markets were closed, there were 390 new listings in June 2020. This was more than the 378 in June 2021 as the stamp duty deadline loomed and the rush to put homes up for sale slackened off.
Our patch saw 240 sales agreed in June 2020 but the much higher figure of 301 in 2021 – not surprising given the levels of demand for property generated by the stamp duty holiday. And in terms of our own properties, we registered 836 buyers and conducted 1,038 viewings in June – double the level of a year ago.
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Analysis from Zoopla bears this out. Its monthly market update shows a rise in house prices of 4.7% as well as a 26% increase in demand in June – as demand continued to outstrip supply.
Consequently, we have seen house price rises push some properties into a higher stamp duty band – meaning buyers could now be paying more than if the holiday hadn’t happened in the first place!
It’s no surprise that from June’s figures we can see things starting to slow down. Realising they couldn’t complete in time for the deadline, people have begun to wait and see what will happen in the market.
It’s just a week since the 30 June deadline and, while the tax break still exists on the first £250,000 of a sale, I don’t think this will have a massive effect on demand. But with furlough beginning to reduce and companies having to pay 10% towards employee salaries, it will be interesting to see the impact on the market.
June was a mad month – I look forward reporting on what July brings.
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