| perhaps stamp duty should be raised for homes that are not the buyers principal private residence, this may deter some overseas buyers and possible cool our home grown buy-to-let market which people often complain about. Also, the rent-a-room tax break is £4250 pa, perhaps increasing it to £500 or £600 per month would encourage more people to rent a room and take some pressure out of the market. One other idea would be to allow buyers to choose to either pay stamp duty upfront as normal or the same percentage stamp duty when the property is sold (could be a nice earner for the government). Of course any ideas like these are just "tinkering" the real problems are the supply side on one hand and localised demand on the other, eg London is a hotspot due to the job market and its position as one of the best cities in the world. politicians are always talking about rebalancing the economy, but what they dont often talk about is how SE centric our economy is becoming, encourage businesses to the Midlands, North, West Country, Wales etc and people will follow the jobs. |