Chris Pick, Business Development Manager and Valuer at Alasdair Morrison & Partners thinks that the end of the stamp duty holiday won’t have a huge effect on the booming Southwell and Newark housing market.
The threshold for stamp duty in England and Northern Ireland will fall to £250,000 from 1 July and return to the pre-pandemic level of £125,000 in September, although first-time buyers will still be able to purchase homes up to £300,000 without incurring any stamp duty from 1 July.
Chris says: “Currently we have an unprecedented number of qualified buyers searching for suitable property in the local area. They are fully prepared with finances and mortgages in place and are primed to purchase the right property at the right price.”
Southwell and Newark have proved particularly popular with buyers as the two towns both offer a high standard of semi-rural living, good schools, combined with excellent road and rail links to the rest of the UK and extremely high quality and wide ranging housing stock. Newark was the 11th busiest property market in 2020 according to mortgage broker Haysto.
“At the time of writing this article,” says Chris, “we know that solicitors across the UK have called on the government to amend the stamp duty deadline of 30 June to exchange of contract rather than completion to ease pressure on everyone involved in the house buying process, but as yet no decisions have been made.
“As such local solicitors have been working round the clock to help sellers and buyers complete before 30 June and our teams at Newark and Southwell are working closely with them to help the sales complete wherever possible.”
