How to fix a broken property market

The UK property market is not broken in one place. It is broken at every friction point. Stamp duty punishes movement, especially for growing families, downsizers and people relocating for work. It should be reformed so the tax does not freeze people in homes that no longer fit their lives. The buying process is also painfully slow. We need proper upfront information before a property is listed: title, lease details, service charges, planning history, building safety information and searches. Too many buyers only discover problems weeks into the process. Valuations are another issue. A property is only worth what the market, lender and buyer can justify, not what someone hopes it is worth. Overpricing creates false confidence, collapsed chains and wasted time. My fix: reform stamp duty, digitise property data, require sellers to provide key documents before marketing, and bring more discipline into timelines.

The UK does not have a property market problem because people want to buy homes. It has a property transaction problem. Too many purchases collapse after months of time, money and stress have already been invested. Buyers can spend hundreds of pounds on surveys, searches and legal work, only for a chain to fall apart with little warning and few consequences. In an age where mortgage decisions can be made within hours, it can still take months to complete a property purchase. Greater use of upfront information, digital conveyancing and earlier commitment from all parties would help reduce delays, uncertainty and avoidable fall-throughs.

The UK property market is cracked in several places and we've been papering over them for years. Stamp duty punishes the wrong people - First-time buyers need greater relief, and downsizers need it abolished entirely. Remove it for downsizers and you free up family homes overnight. It's one of the simplest levers available and governments keep ignoring it. Conveyancing is stuck in another era. Digital identity verification, standardised information packs and a central property register would all help. Some searches take 12 weeks alone. The technology exists. The will to use it doesn't. Sellers should have skin in the game. Require them to provide a homebuyer's report plus gas and electrical safety checks before listing. It would reduce fall-throughs and speed up transactions for everyone. The deposit gap remains the biggest barrier. I regularly sit opposite first-time buyers in their 40s and 50s. That shouldn't be normal. We know what's broken. We just need someone to actually fix it.

Stamp duty reform would be the oxygen that would breathe life into the current housing market. We can cope with all the other negatives around moving, as the market will usually correct itself. However, there has to be an active market in the first place, and that is what is currently lacking.

The whole process needs a deep and thorough reboot, not a switch it off and on again approach. Vendors should be much more financially committed at the outset than they are. Other than an EPC they can mostly market their property for free while calling all the shots. They should be the ones that get the valuation in advance along with searches and initial legal documentation ahead of marketing. A more mandated digital process would speed the transaction up no end. We have more technology than we have ever had and it takes longer now than ever to move. It should be the opposite. The process is still stuck in medieval times including some of the law used. Lenders are assessing on some of the minute risks- they need to get more edgy- we are seeing some innovation but they could be bolder. When you see how easy other nations make it such as North America, Canada, Australia and Scandinavia, it shows it can be done. We are just so far behind the times.

Everyone's fixing the front door while supply slips out the back. The whole conversation is about people trying to buy. Almost nobody's asking where the homes to rent come from. Under Section 24, landlords are taxed on rent collected rather than profit kept, so a property running at a genuine loss can still land a tax bill. Add the 5% stamp duty surcharge and the sums get harder every year. Fewer landlords means fewer rental homes, which means higher rents. And higher rents quietly drain the deposit a first-time buyer is trying to save, so the same squeeze that hits renters also keeps them renting. We're so focused on the point of sale that we're missing what's breaking long before a home ever reaches it.

The UK doesn’t only have a housing market problem. It has a property transaction problem. There is a lot we could learn from Scotland and overseas markets where buyers receive far more information upfront and transactions are completed with greater certainty. In England, buyers often spend months and thousands of pounds only to discover issues that could have been identified before a property was ever listed. We can approve a mortgage in hours, yet buying a home still feels stuck in a different era. Upfront property packs, digitised conveyancing, greater seller accountability and earlier legal preparation would dramatically reduce delays and fall-throughs. The demand to move home exists. The real challenge is creating a system that allows people to do so efficiently and with confidence.

The biggest problem with the UK property market is that almost every part of the process is slower, more expensive and more stressful than it needs to be. Transactions still collapse too easily, first-time buyers struggle to save deposits while rents remain high, and moving home is heavily taxed. If I could change three things, I'd dramatically reform stamp duty so it doesn't punish mobility, build significantly more homes in the areas where demand is strongest, and take a more balanced approach to the rental sector. There will always be people who choose to rent because they value the flexibility and don't want the risks and costs of homeownership. We need to stop assuming every renter wants to buy, and recognise that policies which increase costs for landlords often end up increasing costs for tenants too.

Where to begin.
1. Remove Stamp Duty: It is a barrier to moving for young and old alike. SDLT should be reserved for 2nd properties only, in the same way CGT is applied only to secondary property.
2. Prevent our political class from pulling the levers of the property market for short term advantage, with little care for the consequences. Establish a new body to manage the housing market free of political interference and with long term vision.
3. Establish new rules on lending / borrowing and affordability, more suited to long term borrowing rather than short term moving which was suitable for a different era.
4. Unpick the tax rules relating to Landlords regarding Mortgage Interest Relief, this should help slow down the exodus of Landlords following the RRA, and may also encourage them to engage with the typical rental stock (1 beds / 2beds) that is currently struggling to sell.

We need to enable people to move without penalty.