First time buyers now better off across all of England and Wales apart from London

First time buyers purchasing an average priced home will be better off across all of England and Wales apart from Greater London but buyers will still pay a lot less in stamp duty.

Figures calculated by leading lender the Halifax shows that as long as a first time buyer does not exceed the average price for the typical first home in their region they will pay no stamp duty at all.

In Greater London where the average price of a first time buyer home is £421,216 a first time buyer would have paid £11,060 but will now pay £6,060, a saving of £5,000, according to the Halifax figures.

The next biggest saving is in the South East where the average price for a typical first home is £278,965. A first time buyer will now avoid paying £3,948 in tax. In East Anglia with a typical first home purchase price of £206,339 the stamp duty saving is £1,626 and in the South West with an average first time buyer price of £205,485 the saving is £1,609.

Substantial savings are also there for first time buyers in the Midlands. In the West Midlands where a typical first time buyer home costs £167,274 the saving is £845 and in the East Midlands with a purchase price of £162,844 the saving in stamp duty is £756.

But elsewhere the saving is much smaller and first time buyers in Scotland will have to wait three weeks to find out if the Scottish Government decides to follow the Chancellor Philip Hammond and abolish property tax payable by first time buyers.

The Scottish Budget will be revealed next month. Currently in Scotland the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) is zero up to £145,000 and then increases in bands from 2% to 10% for properties valued at between £145,000 to £750,000 and 12% above that.

But there may be no change in Scotland. According to the Halifax figures the average price of typical first time buyer home in Scotland is £139,870, below the threshold where LBTT kicks in.

In the North East where the typical first home costs £126,237 the saving on stamp duty will be just £24, according to the Halifax figures, while in Wales with an average first time buyer price of £139,281 the saving is a modest £285.

In Yorkshire and Humber buying an average prices first home at £140,122 the stamp duty saving is £302 and in the North West the saving is £490 on the average price of £149,539. There is no change for first time buyers in Northern Ireland where the average price paid by first time buyers is just £120,205.

‘The changes to stamp duty are a real boost for those hoping to take their first step on the property ladder,’ said Jasjyot Singh, mortgages director at the Halifax. But he pointed out that first time buyers still need to find an average deposit of £32,899.

However, when the buy their first home, they are on average £651 a year better off owning versus renting.

‘The number of first time buyers getting on the housing ladder has now exceeded 150,000 for the third time in four years, a level of momentum not seen since before the financial crisis. We will be lending over £10 billion in 2017 to help people own their first home,’ he added.