Stamp duty holiday set to save £3.4bn with 76% of homebuyers paying nothing at all

The latest research by estate agent comparison site, GetAgent.co.uk, has found that despite market delays, over half a million homebuyers in England are set to benefit from the stamp duty holiday to the tune of £3.4bn.

GetAgent analysed transaction data from the Land Registry to see how the market has already performed between the launch of the stamp duty holiday and the original deadline of 31st March 2021 (latest data available). GetAgent then also estimated what the continued impact will look like by the time the clock does finally expire on the initiative.

The impact on demand is clear, with GetAgent’s research showing that prior to the launch of the stamp duty holiday, 258,978 transactions took place across England between 1st January 2020 and 7th July 2020. This equates to 1,370 homes sold for every one of the 189 days during this period.

However, current market data suggest that since the introduction of the stamp duty holiday, this has increased to a rate of 1,508 homes sold per day.

In total, GetAgent estimates that of the 539,972 transactions forecasted to complete between 8th July 2020 and the initial deadline extension of 30th June this year, 84% will pay no stamp duty at all, with the total market saving expected to hit nearly £3.2bn.

In addition, a further 138,764 homes are expected to sell between the additional deadline extension of 1st July and 30th September this year. Despite the stamp duty free threshold being reduced from £500,000 to £250,000, GetAgent estimates that 45% of all transactions will still remain stamp duty exempt with a further saving of £250,006,781 seen across the market as a whole.

In total, the stamp duty holiday in its entirety looks set to see an estimated 76% of all homebuyers pay no stamp duty whatsoever, with the total saving hitting over £3.4bn.

Founder and CEO of GetAgent.co.uk, Colby Short, commented:

“The current stamp duty holiday may have its critics and there’s no doubt that it’s been a factor in creating the current market bottleneck that has seen many subject to long delays during the transaction process.

However, there’s also no doubt that a great deal of homebuyers have benefitted and many more will continue to do so right up until the end of September. Even with the reduction of the stamp duty free threshold from July onwards, nearly half of all transactions will continue to pay no stamp duty at all, so we can expect the market madness to continue until this secondary deadline, at the very least.”

Method description:

The methodology was based on price paid data and the average per day values for transactions, SDLT spend, and SDLT savings so far during the stamp duty holiday. These average per day figures were then applied to relative time periods to give estimates for both deadline extensions.