Budget 2018: How will it affect the sales and rental market?

Earlier this week Chancellor Philip Hammond announced the budget, the final before the UK will leave the EU. How will it affect buying/selling and renting going forward over the next 12 months?

All first time buyers who are buying shared equity homes up to £500,000 are now exempt from stamp duty. This is a large amount of money first time buyers can now save on their purchase, but realistically how many shared equity homes are actually in our area? In Portsmouth and surrounding areas there are currently no new build homes which offer shared equity. As we know there are still many homes to be built between now and 2022, in our local area, having seen the councils five year housing plan from 2017. So will this allow more homes to offer shared equity, meaning more first time buyers can get on the market earlier than they anticipated?

A further 650,000 homes to be built following a £500 million injection into the Housing Infrastructure Fund. Will this now open further opportunities for developers both large and small, to gain planning permissions? The chancellor said there would be guarantees of up to £1bn for smaller house-builders, so further availability for smaller niche developments to arise locally. This is something here at Nexa we specialise in.

The chancellor also announced there will be partnerships with local Housing Associations, allowing up to a further 13,000 homes in the next year. Will this give some breathing space for tenants requiring social housing, who are currently having to fork out huge sums of money on rents and deposits on the private rental market as there is a lack of social housing locally.

Wage growth is at its highest in a decade, the living wage and minimum wage are due to be increased, however interestingly the living wage is increasing further than the living cost, is this going to be something we are actually able to benefit from in the long run? That coupled with the £650 extra we are now able to earn a year, income tax free, perhaps we will slowly start to see the difference in our pockets.

So overall a far more positive budget than we have had in recent years, still no further tax relief to buy to let landlords and still no word on the looming tenant fee ban. There seems to be a larger focus on house building and first time buyers, perhaps even giving options for many people being able to purchase sooner, rather than renting.