This is what the Budget needs to do to get people moving again - Mark Manning

With the Budget fast approaching, there’s a lot of speculation about what the Chancellor might announce and whether any of it will make a genuine difference to the property market.

There is no shortage of challenges facing the market at the moment. We have plenty of homes available, but chains are taking longer to progress and there is still a reluctance among some people to make their next move due to economic uncertainty and the high cost-of-living.

For me, the Budget needs to focus on practical measures that remove some of the barriers standing in the way of people moving.

I’m pleased to see the Government will introduce a new equity loan scheme, Your First Home, to help first-time buyers. We’ve seen before how Government support can help people take their first step onto the ladder, but the key will be getting the eligibility criteria right.

If the scheme is too restrictive, it simply won’t have the reach needed to make a meaningful difference. It needs to be sufficiently well funded, accessible and broad enough to help a significant number of genuine first-time buyers.

These buyers are the lifeblood of the market, and when they buy, it helps create movement further up the chain, which is something the market desperately needs.

Stamp duty is another area where I would like to see some common sense. The cost of moving home has become increasingly prohibitive, and that can be enough to make many people think twice about making a move.

Raising the stamp duty thresholds in line with the inflationary rises we’ve seen over recent years would help, but I would also like to see targeted relief for downsizers.

There are growing numbers of older people living in homes that are larger than they need, but despite many of them wanting to move, they’re put off by the costs involved.

Planning is another area that urgently needs to be addressed. We hear a lot about the need to build more homes, and I completely agree that we do, but building more homes requires a planning system capable of supporting that ambition.

Successive Governments have committed to ambitious housebuilding targets, yet those targets have repeatedly been missed. There needs to be greater support for local planning authorities and a serious effort to remove some of the unnecessary bureaucracy that slows developments down.

If we want to build the homes the country needs, planning needs to become quicker and more efficient.

Finally, while the Government is looking at introducing independent regulation of property professionals, I would also like to see equal attention given to the buying and selling process.

A typical transaction now takes around 120 days, and it just shouldn’t take this long to move. We have more technology and information available than ever, yet the process has become weighed down by red tape, lender requirements and conveyancing delays.

More information should be made available upfront to reduce the number of issues that emerge once a sale is underway. If the Government could make the process quicker and simpler, it would do more than just reduce frustration, it could give people the confidence to move.

This Budget doesn’t need to reinvent the market, but it does need to remove some of the obstacles that are stopping people from moving.

Mark Manning is managing director of Manning Stainton estate agents