I guess, objectively you are correct!

Not sure I’d classify 5 bed as a normal family home, but there are quite a few places in the uk where a fairly ordinary 3 bed can be priced at over a million.

I have a project on housing in Africa and a recommendation is to give people enough room to be economically active - ie a spare bedroom.

It’s not about making people move out of their homes, but not actually disincentivising those who might want to move elsewhere (a smaller home is cheaper to heat etc). A neglected topic, but with our aging population, we should be building a lot more homes that are accessible/designed for old folks.

I get your point, but it’s a tax people can choose not to pay. Whereas staying on in a bigger house would incur more tax, if you had a property tax that was based on its actual value and not an imagined 1990 value.

It surprises me how many fairly ordinary looking 3 or 4 bedroom houses near me are in the kind of £750-900k range. So if you are downsizing to £500k bungalow, you are still paying the best part of £20k in stamp duty, which does put people off.

While I’m on the topic, my sense is that the second property stamp duty isn’t actually affecting the people it was meant to. I’ve heard stories of separating partners who are potentially having to pay it and this means they can’t move and are stuck (this is from local legal advice services).

I agree that there is always a political danger of lumping changes in together and there will be pushback against property value-based taxes. But stamp duty is way too high and discourages people from moving, downsizing, etc. it is big chunks of cash that people don’t have and cannot easily borrow.

Finally, we could really do with some form of Government backed borrowing for home improvements/energy efficiency. A lot of our housing stock is in shit condition and needs retrofitting, but people are too stretched by mortgage payments to invest in building fabric improvements.

While we’re at it, we need some form of legislation to make buying and selling properties easier and fairer. There too much dodgy practice and it makes the whole process too difficult.

I would 100% get rid of stamp duty and look at better capital gains and a property value tax (which could also fund local services). My feeling is that a more fluid property market would bring down house prices and potentially boost earnings, as people are more able to move for new opportunities.

This is a good point.

My sense, as someone that used to work on house price data, is that a lot of what is selling is in the small to no mortgage category and is typically £400k plus. I don’t think we are seeing a lot of new buyers and people who are larger mortgages are not trading up.

Yes, there needs to be some stimulus to get developers building. When the market slows, the volume housebuilders will go back to their least risky product (greenfield, detached and larger properties). For all the concerns about inflating prices, something needs to be done on demand too.

I think a lot of the misunderstanding about this is because we don’t get how land is valued. The price of land is determined by its expected value, when developed. So if the market value drops, the developer takes the hit. Developing land is risky and in a slow market, it is easy to lose money.

Robbie Gibb should quite simply not be in that role. He makes no pretence of his own bias. While he has power the BBC will continue to rot.