Mr 1%

Excuse my lack of optimism in the state of the UK residential property market, but who actually thinks that Gordon Brown's much trailed Stamp Duty “holiday” is going to make the slightest bit of difference?

The message they want us to swallow is that we should all rush out in the next 12 months and buy a house valued at between £125k and £175k, because we will then be the lucky beneficiaries of a 1% discount. Of course, the fact that we could all instead do nothing and pick up a likely 10% discount in a year’s time seems to have passed the Government by. Waiving a 1% tax will not have even the remotest impact on transaction levels when the mortgage market is so prohibitive, and confidence in the economy so low.

One might be tempted to suggest that the Government knows something we don’t, and believes that GDP growth is due to pick up, inflation to fall, and the credit markets to flow once again. But then Darling rather let the cat out of the bag on that one over the weekend…