Spring statement comment: No news is good news for the housing market

23 March 2022

John Phillips, national operations director at Just Mortgages said: “As expected, there wasn’t anything directly related to the mortgage sector in the Spring Statement.

“The housing market has shown its resilience recently, and although the stamp duty holiday certainly kick-started a frenzy in the last few years, another SDLT break isn’t necessary to keep the market moving.

“It is encouraging that measures have been put in place to ease the cost-of-living crisis, and although the inflation and rising energy prices may impact some, there are still people looking to move to keep the market buoyant and brokers busy.

“As activity settles back to pre-pandemic levels, there is still a steady stream of buyers, and with the Monetary Policy Committee increasing base rate recently, advice from brokers will be even more critical than usual. Rates look set to continue rising and this may spark moves and remortgages as borrowers and brokers look to fix ahead of rates hitting their peak.”