Property Expert and eMoov CEO, Russell Quirk, Provides His Post-Budget Analysis

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A Disappointing Budget for Housing – Something’s a Miss

Despite the Conservatives claiming to be the party of home owning aspiration, many of us are left disappointed by the absence of any robust or meaningful housing initiatives or a dilution of George Osborne’s previous attacks on property purchasers, by way of stamp duty and tax relief changes today.

Mr Osborne has refused to take his foot off the throat of UK residential market and a number of initiatives that could have been advanced to take the pressure of UK homebuyers today, have not been.

Property expert, eMoov CEO and former Brentwood First councillor, Russell Quirk, commented:

“A very disappointing budget from a property point of view and for UK buyers and sellers. The capital gains tax reductions, whilst bold, are a missed trick and a kick in the teeth for those second home-sellers, that will not benefit from a reduction in capital gains tax on their property sale. This was hardly a budget to assist hard working people with more than one property, not to mention Mr Osborne’s total failure to address the issue of housing supply that has been touched upon in previous budgets.

It’s startling that the provision of much-needed housing supply did not seem to be referred to at all, despite rhetoric in previous budgets seemingly encouraging public land to be turned over to address the housing supply issue.

In previous budgets, Mr Osborne has enjoyed referring to fixing the roof whilst the sun is shining, may I respectively suggest that he turns his attention to building some roofs whilst the sun is shining instead.

The move to apply new stamp duty changes to larger institutional investors, as well as smaller Buy to Let landlords, is a fair one, although I believe this was probably an oversight from last year and nothing to shout from the rooftops about.

I think the move to mirror the residential stamp duty slice system for commercial properties is also a fair one, but again, not a move that will benefit the man on the street as it were but more the larger commercial developer.

However, the changes to business rate thresholds is a very welcome one indeed and no doubt one of the big headlines of the budget, to help small business’ which of course as a Conservative, surely George should be doing.”

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