The home front

• Steering stimulus: confidence boosting measures.
• Release reaction: agents taken by surprise.
• Vagaries of video viewings: not quite lift-off.
• Urban sprawl versus coast and country.

Estate agents, conveyancers and surveyors won’t be breaking open the champagne just yet. Despite the government’s loosening of restrictions on home sales, things could change if it became necessary to re-impose a pause on house moves. There is also concern that the appetite, or financial ability, for moving might have been diminished, along with reports of some buyers reducing offers agreed before the shutdown.

Steering stimulus

Against this background, the government will face renewed pressure to cut stamp duty to stimulate the property market and Hew Edgar, head of UK government relations at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reports that, following its call on the government to explore confidence-boosting measures for the residential market as it reopens, its member survey data suggested its proposal for a stamp duty holiday would boost transactional activity, helping people move home.

Meanwhile,