YORKSHIRE’S HOUSING MARKET WON’T SUFFER BUDGET BLUES

As part of Yorkshire’s largest independent estate agent, Dacre, Son & Hartley, we at Lister Haigh believe Yorkshire’s housing market will be largely immune to the property tax changes announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in this week’s autumn budget.

Key announcements included the so-called mansion tax, which will hit homes worth more than £2 million from April 2028. The ‘high value council tax surcharge,’ means homeowners will pay an annual charge on top of their council tax bill. There will be four bands for the mansion tax, with values based on 2026 prices.

The lowest band will be for homes worth between £2m and £2.5m, which will pay an additional £2,500 each year. Homes worth £5m or more will be in the highest band and will pay £7,500 each year.

Data from Rightmove shows less than 0.5% of all home sales agreed this year have been for properties with an asking price of over £2m, and around 1% of homes for sale are priced above this threshold. Sales agreed for homes worth more than £2m are already down 13% year-on-year, suggesting the market has already been reacting to the speculation about this change.

Residential landlords will also pay an additional 2% income tax on their rental income, which will add further pressure to the private rented sector. However, despite widespread speculation in recent months, no changes to stamp duty were announced.

Nick Talbot, our residential principal at Lister Haigh, said: “After the endless build up to the budget, we now have the result and a vast amount of commentary and opinion has followed. There is absolutely no question that the pre-budget briefings and speculation from early summer have impacted on the market. Viewing levels are down and demand has been blunted, most noticeably for homes priced at £1.3m and above.

“However, despite lower volumes of activity, transactions have still been secured. On budget day we agreed terms on two properties at approximately £1.1m and £1.25m; earlier in the week we exchanged on a property priced at almost £3m and we hope to conclude another, in excess of that sum, this week.

“With the budget delayed until the end of November, we are likely to see pre-Christmas trading impacted, but beyond that my view is that the new year should deliver healthy trading and a noticeable upturn especially in the seven figure sectors.

“With the budget out of the way, the market has the advantage of clarity and certainty. Interest rates remain competitive – with mortgages still openly available at less than 4%. Furthermore, I believe there is significant suppressed demand, which has been held back by pre-budget concerns, but which will now manifest itself in the market.”

*Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya