Phoebus: Budget "could be a "death knell"

30 October 2024

In response to today’s Budget, here’s a comment from Phoebus.

Richard Pike, chief sales and marketing officer at Phoebus, said:

The instant rise to 5% on stamp duty for landlords could well be a death knell for many wanting to expand their rental portfolios. At a time when many landlords are selling up and leaving the market altogether, it will make things more challenging both for buy-to-let lenders and for those tenants who either don’t want to or can’t afford to buy their own homes.

The increased investment in affordable housing will be a help for those who can afford to buy, but it won’t be an overnight fix as there has been a repeated shortfall in the number of houses built over many years and we are nowhere near the government’s stated aim to build 1.5million houses over the next five years.

This is not helped by the more than 28,000 potential new builds which are currently blocked by river pollution. This needs to be tackled immediately to have the effect the government says it wants. More also needs to be done to fix the planning laws to enable the homes to be built – and to encourage big developers to stop land banking and build houses, quickly, on the land that they do own.

No doubt the rise in employers’ national insurance will also have an impact on the ability of house builders to recruit the staff necessary.

As a first budget, Labour can’t be accused of not making a big impact. As to whether it’s the impact they intended, only time will tell. With the measures that make it more difficult for businesses to operate we will have to wait and see whether it actually creates the high growth economy that Labour says that it wants.