Chancellor Philip Hammond has today revealed in the Autumn budget that stamp duty will be abolished immediately for first-time buyers buying a home of up to £300,000. What this means is that for properties costing up to £500,000, no stamp duty will be paid on the first £300,000, with 95% of first-time buyers seeing stamp duty cut, while 80% will pay none at all.

Although this immediately looks positive for first-time buyers, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the main people benefitting would actually be existing homeowners, because it expects all house prices to rise by 0.3% as a result of the change!