According to propertyfinder.com, it now stands at £9,486, up from £2,925 in 1996.
It found that, on average, people looking to move home in the UK can currently expect to pay £450 in removal costs, £1,000 in lawyer fees, £3,027 in estate agent’s fees, and £5,009 in stamp duty. Ten years ago, these figures stood at £376, £857, £1,257 and £543 respectively.
Warren Bright, chief executive of propertyfinder.com, commented: “On top of rapid house price inflation, home sellers have to contend with the soaring costs of moving home. The largest factor is stamp duty, which now accounts for over half of moving costs on the average home and has risen almost tenfold in ten years. Without doubt, the Chancellor has been the largest beneficiary of the booming housing market.”
While the costs of moving home have risen by an annual average of 12.5 per cent, inflation has averaged 1.5 per cent per annum over the same period. These higher costs effectively have to be borne by a homebuyer’s mortgage, adding just under £60 to the monthly cost of a borrower’s repayments, around £700 every year.
The extra costs are discouraging people from moving up the property ladder and there is a resulting shortage of properties on the market, particularly at the bottom end. Propertyfinder.com’s monthly confidence index suggests people currently expect house prices to rise by 6.4 per cent over the next twelve months - and 31 per cent of home seekers would account a rise primarily to the fact that there are too few properties coming up for sale.
Bright commented: “The high cost of moving home has definitely contributed to the current supply shortage in the housing market. In the past, when costs were low, there was little to prevent people from making a number of small steps up the housing ladder. Now that transaction costs, especially stamp duty, are prohibitive, people are more reluctant to move, or are making fewer, bigger jumps up the ladder.”
