Yahoo Sports Brits to spend £11.3bn stamp duty savings on home renovations
Brits will spend about £11.3bn ($15bn) out of stamp duty savings on home improvements and renovations over the next few months, research suggests.
About 14% of Brits either have or will purchase a property following chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announcement of a temporary stamp duty holiday in June. This could save potential movers about £5,219 — £38.1bn nationally, a survey of over 2000 UK adults by Checkatrade found.
A third of buyers said they plan to immediately spend about £4,734 of this extra cash “sprucing up” their house and making it “feel like a home” — amounting to £11.3bn being reinvested nationally.
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Kitchens (40%) and bathroom (30%) renovations are improvements Brits consider most important, but the desirability of outdoor space during the COVID-19 pandemic is also clear, with a quarter (24%) keen to “do up” their garden, a fifth (18%) planning a patio or outdoor dining area, and one in 10 (11%) considering an “outdoor workspace”.
Those with more cash to splash might even go for a cinema (12%) or swimming pool (11%), the study found.
Top 10 home improvements buyers plan to splurge on
New kitchen (40%)
New bathroom (30%)
Living room (27%)
Garden (24%)
Patio or outdoor entertaining space (18%)
Dining room (12%)
Loft conversion (12%)
Cinema, home entertainment or games room (12%)
Indoor workspace (12%)
Outdoor workspace or swimming pool (11%)
Jamie Scotto, a first-time buyer in London, said he has saved about £5,000 thanks to the stamp duty holiday.
“[It] has come at the ideal time for me as a first-time buyer — we were thinking we’d have to wait quite a while to get started on any home improvements as we’d maxed out our budget on buying the house. It feels like such a win to know we have some extra cash available and can get cracking on immediately making our house our home,” Scotto said.
He added: “We’re going to totally revamp the bathroom, but then I’m hoping we might also be able to replace the boiler ahead of the winter too.”
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Three in five (59%) buyers are even more likely to buy a “doer upper” now they’ll have more to spend personalising their perfect home, which could potentially boost sales of a broader range of property types, Checkatrade said.
“Savvy Brits are clearly planning to make the most of the stamp duty holiday with many buyers already planning to reinvest the money saved back into their homes,” said CEO Mike Fairman.
“From unlocking the potential to take on a project through to giving buyers the means to immediately make their mark on their new pad, it’s great news for both would-be new home-owners and tradespeople alike.”
