Skip to main content

How did we do in the Budget?

HOUSING

Scheme to guarantee mortgage-backed securities to boost lending

• Stamp duty holiday for homes up to £175,000 to be extended to end of year

• Extra £80m for shared equity mortgage scheme

• £500m to kick-start stalled housing projects - including £100m for local authorities to build energy efficient homes

• £50m to upgrade housing for the armed forces

The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, has delivered his Budget for 2009.

The measures are part of the government's efforts to drag the economy out of the deepest recession since World War II. But how will the Budget affect you?

Any help for home buyers?

Yes. The current stamp duty holiday is being extended to the end of 2009. That means anyone who buys a home for less than £175,000 will, until then, continue to pay no stamp duty on their transaction.

I am worried about my home being repossessed

The scheme that lets you claim state benefits to help you pay interest on your mortgage - Income Support for Mortgage Interest (ISMI) - is being extended so the support lasts for an extra six months.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

House builders discuss 95% mortgages with lenders

So the house builders and the lenders have had a meeting to discuss how they can create 95% mortgages. Basically a good thing, as you would imagine most estate agents would say. But what proportion of the housing Market is represented by new homes sales to first time buyers? Also any first time buyer who purchases a new home is then a cost to the second hand Market of who knows how many sales! If I think back 30 years my wife and I as first time buyers were providing a deposit of 10%. To do this we sold her car, saved up by not going out as much and generally committed ourselves to the task of buying our first home together. Ah, you might say, but house prices were so much cheaper then. True but my salary was just under £2,000 per annum with the prospect of perhaps another £1,000 in commission from selling at lease 6 houses per month personally. The first 4 didn't count towards commission but were to cover my costs to my employer! I personally don't think 95% mortgages are ...

CHRISTMAS 2019 - RENTAL HOMES

CHRISTMAS 2019   The festive season is not far off and we just wanted to take this opportunity to confirm our opening hours over the Christmas holiday period and also to outline a few procedures: We will close for the holiday period at   Midday on 23rd December . Opening on   27th and 28th December between 9am and 1pm . We will open normally from   2nd January 2020 at 09.00 . Day to day issues which could wait until normal office hours resume on the   2nd January 2020 , should be reported then.   Our contractors may be on call but many of their suppliers close down over the Christmas period so parts can be hard to locate. We will not attend any “lockouts” over the Christmas break but can pass on the details of a good local locksmith if this occurs – the cost of which will, of course, be yours. A small request   – if you have   any   problems with your heating and hot water now or maybe an appliance that is a bit temperame...

Call to Arms - From the Guild of Professional Estate Agents

I received this in an e-mail newsletter from the Guild and felt I simply had to re-publish it here... A Call To Arms.... We know that the UK estate agency market is the most competitive in Western Europe, with the fees levied being only a fraction of those applicable in most developed countries (even when compared to the supposed paragon of the free market, the USA). We also exemplify the specialist skills involved in successfully selling a property, and help mitigate the significant risks involved to the buyer and vendor from acting without professional advice and guidance. Finally, if the rate of consumer dissatisfaction has fallen by half to 12% since the last report, then the service is clearly rapidly improving of its own accord (given the current absence of licensing and mandatory qualifications). The market statistics also speak volumes. Too many estate agents chasing too few transactions has meant that only a small minority are making healthy profits. With over 2,000 offices ...