Dear George,
Bless your heart, you’ve been extremely competent to date so don’t be caught up with the press feeding frenzy about a housing bubble (that actually doesn’t exist in the middle to upper price ranges). I represent a plethora of entrepreneurial agents who are not doing that well at the moment since there are very few cash buyers, whether local or foreign, in the market place particularly above £2million and as it rises towards the £5million mark and above even fewer.
In fact, to put a finer point on it, our turnover is 50% down on last year and this is as a direct result of the Stamp Duty changes in the Budget of 2012. An active property market for London and the UK is the ‘golden goose’ and as such provides very necessary funds for the Exchequer by way of Stamp Duty, VAT, Corporation Tax, foreign earnings and PAYE.
Already the liquidity of the market in this price range is under threat and properties are taking as long as one to two years to sell. This is a trend that is getting worse.
If you add to this lamentable scenario the spectre of Mansion Tax, that the socialists want to impose if they get into power at the next election, you will have yourself a morass.
I know that there are many people out there ‘baying for the blood’ of the bourgeoisie but you have done enough with the budget of 2012 and this should have appeased some but be careful not to throw the ‘baby out with the bathwater’.
The economy is growing and hopefully this will translate into swelling your coffers that will help to reduce the deficit but it is still fragile and should be treated with the utmost care. The world markets on which the exporters depend are trying to grow but they are still in the early stages (particularly Europe) of the cycle and therefore nurturing this fledgling growth is the order of the day.
Any good farmer will tell you that when a sapling is growing it is not time for heavy fertiliser this can be applied later on and the plan to impose Capital Gains Tax on foreign individuals may be just enough straw to ‘break the camels back’.
If you care about this industry you will not do it.
Yours caringly
Trevor Abrahmsohn