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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Stamp duty changes save movers £4,500

Chancellor George Osborne's stamp duty changes saved homemovers more than £4,500 on average last year, new figures show.

The Chancellor cut stamp duty on properties costing less than £1 million in his Autumn Statement in December 2014.

The resulting savings has been more than offset by rapid house price growth, which has pushed up the average house mover property by a third since 2010, at a rate of over £1,000 a month.

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The number of people moving home saw little movement from the previous year, according to the latest Lloyds Bank Homemover Review.

Despite lower stamp duty costs and rising house prices, which boosted owner’s equity levels, the number of people moving house in 2015 dipped slightly to 365,000, down from 366,400 in 2014.

This was still 16% higher than the 2009 market low of 315,800, but just half the 2006 peak of 712,000.

Over the past five years, the average price paid by homemovers has grown 30% from £210,252 to £273,4912.

That is an increase of £63,239, equivalent to a monthly rise of £1,054. 

The average deposit put down by a homemover jumped 22% from £74,649 to £91,020 in the five years to 2015, equivalent to 33% of the average price paid.

London saw stronger growth than the rest of the UK, with average homemover prices up 51% to £515,004 since 2010.

Andrew Mason, Lloyds Bank mortgages director, said: “The 2015 stamp duty changes, low mortgage rates and rising real pay growth provided more favourable conditions for homemovers in 2015, although that hasn’t translated to any increase in numbers.

”We might have expected the change to the stamp duty structure to have resulted in a greater numbers.

“The ongoing increase in house prices throughout the year will have been especially welcomed by those who bought at the peak of house prices, who have been looking to rebuild their equity in order to make their next move.”

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