Yet others think the market is so hot that few will care about the tax break ending soon. Estate agents warned of an imminent cliff edge ahead of the original stamp duty deadline earlier this year, but now talk of the market coming to a crashing halt has faded.
Kallum Pickering, a senior UK economist at Berenberg, thinks there’s a decent chance house prices don’t moderate after the stamp duty effect fades.
If that’s the case, then “the situation may start to look a bit more precarious,” he says. “This is a proper economic boom and we’re running the risk of not recognising it.”
The BoE’s backup weapon
Pickering argues that discussions about the market crashing often wrongly focus too much on house prices, when actually the warning signs that the market might be about to turn are more about “cracks in the fundamentals” such as the ability for banks to lend.
But the Bank of England is more likely to throttle the market than allow a bubble to form unrestrained before it bursts, he adds.
The Bank was given legal powers to rein-in mortgage lending in 2014 after George Osborne warned that Britain’s roaring housing market posed a threat to financial stability, and the tools put in place that year are still in place. Stress tests of the banking sector have shown it can cope with a 30pc fall in property prices.
“For now, market momentum remains reassuringly solid. Buyer demand is strong, interest rates are very low and lenders remain keen to lend,” says Jonathan Hopper, of buying agents Garrington Property Finders.
“House price inflation will inevitably cool in the coming months, but broadly the market is in good health.
“The elephant on the horizon – if not yet in the room – is interest rates. The Bank has a mandate to keep inflation at 2pc, and with consumer inflation doubling to 1.5pc in April, that level could soon be breached.”
If it is, he believes the Bank may reach for its blunt instrument of choice – a rise in interest rates. “Increasing the cost of borrowing could slam the brakes on credit-reliant sectors of the property market and spark fears of a derailing of wider economic growth,” he says.
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