SURREY, UNITED KINGDOM — (Marketwire) — 02/15/12 — With just over a month until the end of the Government-s stamp duty holiday (24th March), new analysis from HSBC reveals nine in ten first-time buyers have not had to pay the housing tax over the past two years.
Stamp Duty Holiday
Of the 331,899 first-time buyer loans taken out between the start of the stamp duty holiday on 24th March 2010 and the end of 2011, 89% were for properties priced under GBP 250,000. Over this period, 286,299 first-time buyers bought a stamp duty free property, with 159,872 benefitting from the stamp duty holiday by buying their first home priced between GBP 125-250,000. This is half (50%) of all of those first-time buyers who bought a home over the past two years who would otherwise have been liable to pay the additional tax.
FTB Property Prices
Average first-time buyer property prices are under the normal stamp duty threshold of GBP 125,000 in eight of the 12 UK regions, meaning that the majority of FTBs across the UK are still able to buy a home without having to pay the additional tax. First-time buyer house prices are lowest in the North East (GBP 100,112) and highest in London (GBP 268,454).
Peter Dockar, Head of at HSBC commented: “We have seen a 20 per cent increase in approvals for first-time buyer loans in the first six weeks of the year as they rush to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday.
“With the deadline fast approaching, we will continue to offer a helping hand to first-time buyers. As well as offering a number of competitive deals for customers with as little as 10% deposit, we have also committed to making GBP 3 billion available to first-time buyers in 2012 whilst also offering a number of fee-free mortgages to help keep upfront costs down.”
Fast Facts on Stamp Duty – Tax Year 2010-11
History of Stamp Duty
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HSBC Bank plc: HSBC serves 16.1 million customers in the UK and employs approximately 52,000 people. In the UK, HSBC offers a complete range of personal, premier and private banking services including and . It also provides commercial banking for small to medium businesses and corporate and institutional banking services. HSBC Bank plc is a wholly owned subsidiary of HSBC Holdings plc.
The HSBC Group: HSBC Holdings plc, the parent company of the HSBC Group, is headquartered in London. The Group serves customers worldwide from around 7,500 offices in over 80 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, North and Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. With assets of US$2,716bn at 30 September 2011, HSBC is one of the world-s largest banking and financial services organisations.
Contacts:
HSBC
Suman Hughes
020 7992 2748