Buyer demand is putting upwards pressure on house prices, with the average home value up 8.3 per cent in the year to March 2022
More than 4 million homes in the UK have been pushed into higher stamp duty brackets over the last two years as house prices rocketed.
Buyer demand is putting upwards pressure on house prices, with the average home value up 8.3 per cent in the year to March 2022.
This takes the average value of a UK property to £249,700 ($312,922.79) – up £29,000 ($36,342.65) since the start of the pandemic, according to the Zoopla UK house price index.
In March alone, house prices climbed by £441 ($552.66), and over the last three months, the level of annual price growth was the highest since 2007.
Over the two-year course of the pandemic, total average price growth stands at 13 per cent.
However, price growth isn’t evenly spread across the country, as some of the most affordable markets are seeing the sharpest growth rates. Wales has recorded 12.1 per cent growth over the year, followed by 10.6 per cent in the South West.
Meanwhile in London, there was a modest 3.6 per cent rise.
The property portal site revealed there was a 58 per cent increase in demand for homes in the four weeks to 24 April, compared with the five-year average.
Sales agreed in the run up to Easter also ran 27 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels.
As house prices rocket, Zoopla estimated a total of 3.5 million homes in England and Northern Ireland have moved up into a higher stamp duty threshold over the last two years. This is despite the government announcing a stamp duty holiday during this time.
For first-time buyers who benefit from stamp duty relief on purchases up to £300,000 ($375,958.50) in England and NI, some 1.9 million more properties have moved beyond this threshold since the start of the pandemic and the first lockdown.
This means if these homes were to come onto the market now, or in the future, buyers would have to fork out more in stamp duty than in early 2020.
Meanwhile, a further 815,000 properties have moved across the thresholds in Scotland and Wales.
The property site said that when looking at the entry threshold for stamp duty, the point at which buyers would have to start paying the purchase tax, around 1.5 million additional properties will now attract a stamp duty charge, compared to two years ago.
Grainne Gilmore, head of research at Zoopla, said: The rise in house prices since the beginning of the pandemic, due to the demand/supply imbalance, means millions more properties are now in higher stamp duty brackets. But there are pockets of increased supply emerging, creating more choice for buyers in this busy market.