RSM UK has called for stamp duty reform or additional support for first-time buyers to help stimulate housing market activity and ease barriers to purchasing property.
The call from the audit, tax and consulting firm follows the latest UK House Price Index, which shows average house prices rose by 1.3% in the year to January 2026, with a monthly fall of 0.3% on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. The average UK property price stood at £268,000 in January.
Stacy Eden, partner and national head of real estate at RSM UK, commented: “The latest house price index figures show static growth over the last three years, a concerning picture given wage inflation over that period. This places the market in a challenging position for navigating the year ahead, with mortgage rates on the rise and expected hikes in inflation.
“Weak UK economic growth, paired with concerns around the UK economy and the effects of sluggish real-wage growth are damaging the housing demand, alongside tax rises. This is demonstrated by the 20% or so reduction in transactions reported by HMRC on a non-seasonally adjusted basis for the month to January 2026.
“These barriers to sector growth are also having a significant impact on development viability, with our recent Real Estate 360 survey* finding that concerns around the cost of development including regulatory costs and planning delays are making housing development less viable. If house price growth continues to show a broadly flat trajectory, ensuring developments are viable will remain a major challenge.
“Following today’s inflation figures of 3% and expected rises in the future driven by the conflict in the Middle East, the concern is house prices will continue to edge downwards during the first half of 2026.
“With the impacts of geopolitical volatility and headwinds expected to persist in the coming months, measures such as Stamp Duty reforms, or even further government support for first time buyers, would go a long way to re-stimulate the market and remove some of the negative pressures around purchasing property. This is further compounded by the current unattractiveness of the buy-to-let market for individuals with the Rental Reform Act along with penal taxation on landlords, encouraging them to leave the market and invest their money outside UK real estate.”
The markets stoped in some places.
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Raise taxes to pay for the idle and immigrants
Then wonder why the economy is s++t
LOL
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Four day working week and electricity blackouts incoming…?
Europe as a whole but the UK in particular is already and will continue to suffer because of the fallout of the Iranian conflict.
I don’t know much about Iran, but one thing I found out the other day was that (war aside) their average life expectancy is 77.5 years compared to 78.5 years for the USA and 80.8 years for the UK. They are the 17th largest country in the world in terms of population. Their GDP makes them “middle-income” and about 30th on the world ranking table.
They are far from being a tin-pot backwards country.
Individual politics, religion and reasons aside, the conflict was never EVER going to be the push-over that certain American politicians thought it might be.
Unless of course, that was never their intention.
Detailed analysis indicates that the American economy is likely to thrive while the rest of the world takes a significant financial hit. Russia and China do quite well because of their gas supplies and transition to solar power respectively.
From the American perspective, for them only, some short term pain will pay off handsomely.
And the UK is particularly poorly placed to weather the storm.
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And, from that, and perhaps if you have read some of my previous posts, any form of incentive to keep the housing market going will do one thing only…
Transfer even more money to those who are already wealthy.
Not a good idea…
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