The government's stamp duty holiday may be responsible for a re-emergence of first-time buyers, it has been claimed.
First-time buyers are taking advantage of falls in house prices and are slowly returning to the market, new figures suggest. According to the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), those purchasing a home for the first time made up 9.5 percent of buyers on agents' books last month, up from 8.3 percent in August.
The organisation believes the government's recent announcement on stamp duty may have spurred many first-time buyers into action. At the beginning of September, chancellor Alistair Darling said the government would scrap stamp duty on properties worth less than £175,000 for a period of 12 months.
Chris Brown, president of the NAEA, said: "Whilst the announcement is not applicable to all regions across the UK, it might have had an affect on this market group." And he suggested that for first-time buyers who are able to raise a deposit, now is the "perfect" time to buy a home.
Indeed, the estate agent Rightmove said that over the last 12 months, it has witnessed the largest ever fall in asking prices, with sellers marketing their homes 4.9 per cent lower than they were this time last year. This is helping to ease the affordability problems that have been plaguing first-time buyers for the last few years.
