Well, the stamp duty holiday has ended and the world is still turning. In central London, of course, very few properties come into the lower stamp duty brackets so for us it was more of a long weekend than a proper holiday.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders reported that the amount lent on property nationally in December jumped by 14 per cent, which may reflect buyers attempting to push through their purchased before stamp duty went back up again. CML economist Paul Samter is quoted as saying that the January figures may well be boosted by buyers who failed to make the deadline but were too deep into the transaction to pull out.
Be that as it may, lending is still in the doldrums – the December figure of £13.7 billion is the lowest for that month since 2001, so we are a long way from a full recovery. Many analysts expect the national market to drop off in the spring as the market gets over the stamp duty holiday blues and recover somewhat later in the year.
Here at Sandfords we are more optimistic. Historically, the central London market has always led the country out of property slumps and the top of the market has also benefited from an incoming surge of buyers from abroad taking advantage of the week pound. And, whisper it, bankers are beginning to scent bigger bonuses.
So this spring is probably the last opportunity to buy before prices rise.
