Stamp duty reform for first-time buyers has taken pride of place in the Budget speech of Chancellor Phillip Hammond.

From today, all first-time buyer purchases up to £300,000 have NO stamp duty, and if the FTBs are inside London there will be no stamp duty on the first £300,000 of their purchase.

This will make a significant impact on FTBs across the country and it’s already in effect – the change started at midnight last night.

It is understood that first-time buyers paid around £1 billion of the £8.6 billion stamp duty paid on residential properties in 2016/17. Figures are based on his own analysis of HM Revenue & Customs and UK Finance data.

Other figures suggest the average prices paid by first time buyers for homes in different regions range from just £140,000 (in Scotland and Wales) to £365,000 (in London). However, the 10 percent of first-time buyers purchasing more expensive properties spend from £204,800 (Wales) to £618,500 (London).

It is thought that FTBs saving stamp duty on a full £300,000 will be some £5,000.

Labour has already backed the Chancellor’s initiatives on stamp duty.

Other housing-related announcements made by Hammond include:

– additional £44 billion capital funding, loans and guarantees for extra homes – up to 300,000 a year by mid-2020s;

– concentration of new homes in city centres and around transport hubs;

– five new garden towns developed by public/private partnerships;

– urgent review to look at gap between planning permissions and housing starts, to report by spring next year;

– help to develop new homes on smaller plots;

– longer tenancies in the private rental sector with (yet another) consultation on the objective;

– give local authorities the power to charge 100 per cent council tax premium on empty properties;