In a Rush to Beat Stamp Duty Rise UK House Prices Increase

The stamp duty holiday and pent-up demand have led to a stampede into the housing market, with 140,000 more buyers currently waiting to complete their property transactions than a year earlier, according to a new report. The high demand saw UK house prices jump again in September by three per cent year on year, the latest house price index from property website Zoopla showed. It was the strongest growth in two and a half years. Britain’s housing market has been a surprising bright spot in the economy this year. It was closed for much of the spring at the height of the UK lockdowns. But demand built up during that time and is still boosting property transactions. Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s stamp duty holiday, which raised the payment threshold for the tax to £500,000, has also fuelled the market. The policy offers savings of up to £15,000. More than 400,000 property sales worth £112bn were working their way through the pipelines in October, Zoopla said. That figure was up around 50 per cent compared to a year earlier. However, sales had slowed slightly from previous months, the index showed. In August, sales had been running 62 per cent higher than a year earlier.