Not all holidays must come to an end

As the end to the stamp duty holiday looms, figures from moneysupermarket.com show the amount of house buyers looking to purchase a property under £175,000 has increased significantly in the last three months.

Since September, searches on moneysupermarket.com for mortgages on properties under £175,000 have increased by nine per cent. Over half of all searches on the site are for properties under £175,000, so the end of the stamp duty holiday will have a severe impact to the market, with most of these likely to be first time buyers.

Hannah-Mercedes Skenfield, mortgages channel manager at moneysupermarket.com, said: "Thousands of house buyers are trying to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday before it is due to end. It is encouraging to see an increase in homeowners looking for this band of property, but the reality is that most properties are well above the £175,000 price tag.

"Most buyers looking at this end of the housing market are likely to be first-time purchasers; when the stamp duty benchmark is pushed back to £125,000, and factoring in the huge cash deposit required by the Banks, stepping on to the housing ladder is going to be an impossible leap for many. The average house price in all regions is over £125,000, so this benchmark is exceedingly low."

The house purchase searches also show the other stamp duty valuation bands have increased over the same period. Searches for properties between £175,000 and £250,000 have risen by 13 per cent and those between £250,000 and £500,000 have risen by 14 per cent, highlighting that people are trying to return to the market.

Hannah-Mercedes Skenfield added: "The housing market seems to be picking up steadily, and our figures show house purchase searches have been on the rise since September.

"To help this continue the Government should firstly consider extending the stamp duty holiday, however adoption of a regional benchmark system would be the most useful approach to ensure those living in high property value areas are not unfairly penalised and excluded from stamp duty exemptions.

"Recent news that if the Conservative come into power they will raise the stamp duty benchmark to £250,000 to help first-time buyers is excellent news. However, this should be extended to all purchasers - if next time buyers are not able to move due to stamp duty costs, then there won't be any available properties for first time buyers to snap up."