How speculation shaped the housing market

New data has reported that UK house prices are slowly still rising, in spite of current economic uncertainty.

Sharing her thoughts as a top buying agent for London prime property, Black Brick Founder Camilla Dell featured in a new article by The Independent this week to talk all about the current state of UK property.

Commenting on recent interventions supposedly to help first-time buyers, Camilla said: “The reality is that the intervention may have actually made things worse for them. As a result of changes to Stamp Duty, we now see a far greater number of investment clients buying smaller properties for investment and directly competing with first-time buyers. I feel that the new Chancellor now has an opportunity to address this and alter the very punitive levels of Stamp Duty that we now see, which should help diffuse some of the competition at the lower levels of the market.”

The curse of gazumping is back with a vengeance

“Greedy” house sellers asking buyers for higher offers is a trend that’s long been going on in London. But now, it seems the rest of the UK is catching on, too.

Nicknamed ‘gazumping’, this negotiating tactic has been commonplace in much of London’s prime property market for quite some time now.

This week, Black Brick’s Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell shared her thoughts on the matter for a new piece in The Independent, reflecting on a family she recently helped to relocate from London to Surrey.

“During one week alone, we received three enquiries, all from British buyers who had suffered gazumping – one of the most irritating and stressful outcomes a buyer can face,” Camilla shared.

“One client was a UK expat family, planning to relocate back to Britain later this year. They have been looking for a family home for the past six months and have been gazumped on three properties.”

Thank you, Darling: How to take advantage of stamp duty changes

The UK Government’s latest overhaul to the stamp duty tax system is set to help first-time buyers and low-earners to get onto the housing market.

Whilst it may be a little early to tell, evidence over the past week is showing that it may just have worked.

Sharing our advice as a top UK buying agency, Black Brick Founder, Camilla Dell offered her insights in an article all about the stamp duty changes this week in The Independent:

“In a softening market it’s likely that similar properties may have sold for less,” she said. “Armed with this evidence will put buyers in a good position to negotiate. If buying from a developer, find out its financial year-end date – developers want to get as much stock sold before year-end and they may make a substantial discount.”