"The good news is that a tapered exit has now been put in place in order to soften this landing, however, the impact is still likely to be felt more in some areas compared to others."
The latest house price data by the Land Registry has revealed how the market reacted as we approached the original stamp duty holiday deadline in March of this year, before an extension was announced in the March Budget.
The analysis shows that UK house price growth slowed to an average monthly rate of just 0.34% between November 2020 and February 2021.
However, in some areas of the market this decline was far more pronounced, suggesting these areas could see prices fall when the benefit of the stamp duty holiday starts to peter out.
In the City of London, house prices declined at an average rate of -4.6% in the run up to the original stamp duty deadline, with Hammersmith and Fulham (-3.6%) and Kensington and Chelsea (-2.6%) also home to some of the largest declines.
Outside of the capital, Hyndburn in the North West saw a monthly rate of decline averaging -3%, while house prices in Fylde also dropped -2.1% per month on average.
Flintshire (-1.7%) and Oadby and Wigston (-1.6%) saw an average drop of more than one and a half per cent per month, with the Cotswolds, South Tyneside, Neath Port Talbot, Exeter, Tower Hamlets, Darlington, Wokingham and Carlisle also making the top 15 markets that could be bit hardest by the end of the stamp duty holiday.
Founder and CEO of GetAgent, Colby Short, commented: “Much was made of the potential property market crash landing that awaited us at the stamp duty holiday finish line. That was until Rishi Sunak swooped in to save the day with his red briefcase of tricks, of course.
"However, we’re now able to see just how the market was reacting in the run up to the original deadline and before an extension was announced, and it’s clear that cracks were already starting to emerge in a number of locations across England and Wales.
"The good news is that a tapered exit has now been put in place in order to soften this landing, however, the impact is still likely to be felt more in some areas compared to others. It will be interesting to see if it makes much of a difference in the areas that were already showing signs of a decline in February of this year, or they will still feel a greater level of turbulence.”
