Speculation that the chancellor could announce new property taxes in her autumn budget is likely to slow down an already price-sensitive housing market, estate agents have said.<\/p>\n
Rachel Reeves is reportedly considering a tax on the sale of homes over \u00a3500,000<\/a> and the removal of the capital gains tax exemption<\/a> on primary residences above \u00a31.5m as ways to boost income for the government.<\/p>\n The property website Zoopla said changes to the taxation of homes over \u00a3500,000 \u201cmay make some buyers consider a wait-and-see strategy. This covers those who may possibly save money on purchases under \u00a3500,000 and concern those buying over this level as well.\u201d<\/p>\n It said a third of homes for sale were priced at more than \u00a3500,000, with London and the south-east of England in line to be most affected by a change.<\/p>\n The website\u2019s latest monthly snapshot of the property market showed the number of sales agreed was up by 5% year on year in July and that average prices had risen by 1.3%.<\/p>\n One in 10 homes listed had been reduced in price, above the five-year average of 6% of homes. Homes that have been reduced are typically on the market for almost two and a half times longer than those that are priced well when they go on the market, Zoopla said.<\/p>\n Richard Donnell, an executive director at Zoopla, said: \u201cSellers need to understand local market conditions when considering how to market their home, setting the right price and how quickly they would like to sell. The risk of being too ambitious on price is your home taking more than twice as long to find a buyer, or not selling at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeremy Leaf, an estate agent and former chair of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, said: \u201cThe market inevitably lost a little steam over the summer period with so many decision makers away and listings continuing to pile up.\u201d<\/p>\n He said agreed sales were going ahead but added: \u201cUnfortunately, perhaps the government do not appreciate that even rumours of a new property tax can have a detrimental impact on housing market confidence and activity, which we certainly witnessed on the ground since the story broke last week.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Business Today<\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Tom Bill, the head of UK residential research at Knight Frank, said: \u201cA price-sensitive housing market has become a whole lot more price-sensitive over the last fortnight thanks to the speculation around property taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that in the run-up to the budget there could be \u201cweeks of more speculation in a tiresome re-run of 2024 that will keep a lid on transaction activity and stamp duty revenue\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speculation that the chancellor could announce new property taxes in her autumn budget is likely to slow down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-379001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115103634795865381","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}