“Sensible people in the Labour Party understand that you need a strong private rental sector if you’re going to have a strong economy, especially at the time when you can’t build enough houses yourself,” he said. “The last thing you want to do is put more pressure on yourself as a government and a country by constantly kicking the private rental sector.”
Murphy said there was now genuine pent-up demand beginning to surface, with clients reassessing their position in the current mortgage market. Properties below £500,000 were moving quickly, he noted, as buyers factored in the possibility of a stamp duty-driven price spike.
“The trade-off is sadly paying more stamp duty now, but it’s just got them paying too much more for the house,” he said.
For Murphy, Burnham’s speech carried a message the industry had been waiting to hear, that housing was not a standalone policy issue, but a driver of the wider economy. Whether that recognition translates into action will define how the market responds to a potential Burnham government’s first months in office.
“We need anybody who will listen at this moment in time in government to realise that this is not an industry just kind of clutching at straws,” he said. “This is everybody from surveyors, economists, estate agents, banks and building societies saying there needs to be a change to stamp duty to remove this barrier.”