Yorkshire Building Society is responding to the end of the stamp duty holiday by increasing the cashback offer on its first-time buyer mortgages.
From 1st January 2010 the threshold for the tax reverts to £125,000 (from the current £175,000) and to compensate, the lender is returning 1% of the total loan, rather than a set £500.
The enhanced offer applies to a three-year fix at 5.84% and a five-year fix at 5.99%.
Both mortgages also come with a free valuation, free legal fees and a loan-to-value ratio of 85%.
The end of the stamp duty holiday will almost certainly have a detrimental affect on the UK’s fragile property market and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has recently warned that regions already lagging behind in the recovery will be worst affected.
In a poll of members, the RICS found that surveyors in the West and East Midlands, Wales and Scotland are expecting housing market activity to decline in 2010.
However, in London and the South East, no falls in transactions are anticipated as average house prices are already well above £125,000 threshold.
Transaction volumes in the North of England should also remain steady as the average price of a home is well below the threshold, at £116,051.
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