London property market would welcome stamp duty change

Stamp duty change could revive prime property prices by £700,000, helping the top end of the housing market to recover from the current slump which is attributed to the high level of tax and Brexit uncertainty.

Boris Johnson, the favourite candidate to become the next Prime Minister has pledged to abolish the property tax on homes under £500,000 and reverse the rise on prime and super prime homes that was introduced in 2014 by the then Chancellor George Osborne.

New research by prime London property portal Vyomm, has revealed the extent of this initial decision on the market and says that a reversal in stamp duty tax thresholds at the top end could help boost buyer demand and increase high end house prices by as much as £700,000.

Before December 2014 the stamp duty rate for properties between £1 million and £2 million was 5%, rising to 7% from homes sold for £2 million or more. This was increased to 10% on homes from £925,000 to £1.5 million and 12% over £1.5 million.

As a result the average sold price for homes above £1.5 million in London fell by 3.41% or £101,410 in a year and for properties above £10 million it fell by 4.66% or £738,653 over the same period.

But it wasn’t just London that was impacted, a similar decline was seen across the whole of England and Wales, with the average sold price above £1.5 million down 3.72% and falling 4.15% above £10 million.