George Osborne is to blame, but Oxford holds-up well

We now know that UK housing transactions crashed in volume during April, as a direct consequence of the stamp duty surcharge imposed from April 1 according to the latest ONS/Land Registry house price index.

The report for June reveals housing transactions for April – the most up to date month for which data is available, and it documents a sharp drop following the rush to beat the April 1 Stamp Duty deadline.

As you will know, George Osborne introduced the 3% hike on purchases of all second homes, including buy-to-let properties.  Sales volumes in the UK fell from 124,295 in March 2016 to 56,076 in April.

The picture varies widely across English regions, with falls of up to 70% in London, the worst affected.  Across the South East of England volumes were down 59% from 18,583 in March to 7,510 in April.

Whilst I don’t have hard data for Oxford specifically, my sense from speaking with people across the market, and from my own business is that Oxford also suffered a decline in transactions, but that it faired considerably better than the South East average.

Too much commentary over the period since the Brexit vote on June 24^th has confused the impact of the stamp duty levy with the effects of Brexit.  I have been called by many concerned landlords who have asked about the impact on the Oxford market, and my assessment is that stamp duty is responsible for some softening in the market, and that it remains far too soon to assess whether Brexit has had any impact.

We may be seeing a softening of demand from foreign nationals looking to rent top-end properties in the Centre of Oxford, but equally it may simply be that demand will be back-ended towards the end of August and early September.  Overall, rental volumes have built month to month from May, as is normal for the market, and in my own business, volumes are up on the same period last year.  So demand for Oxford rental property remains robust with no discernible softening.