Stamp duty will be suspended for a year on houses costing less than £175,000, the Treasury announced today (02 September 08).

The long rumoured stamp duty holiday has been announced and will take effect tomorrow. This is largely due to estate agents complaining that house buyers have stayed away over the summer in anticipation of stamp duty relief.

As well as the stamp duty holiday, number 10 has announced a £1 billion package of measures to help the economy and the housing market. The key points of the package are:

• A new mortgage rescue scheme to help the most vulnerable families at risk from repossession.
• A new shared equity scheme aimed at helping first-time buyers, called Home Buy Direct, where government and developers would offer a loan of up to 30%.
• Bringing hundreds of millions of pounds forward to allow social landlords and councils to build more affordable homes.

The mortgage rescue scheme could be a mix of three types. Firstly "sale and rent back" which would see a registered social landlord such as a housing association, clearing the debt completely, allowing the homeowner to become a tenant at a level they can afford.

Shared ownership which would see the landlord buying a share (enabling the purchaser to pay off some of their mortgage) and converting the property to shared ownership.

And finally shared equity in which a landlord provides a loan for equity, allowing the householder’s mortgage repayments to be reduced.

An intriguing concept, proposed by René Carayol MBE, is that almost anybody could pay off their mortgage in just two years in his ground-breaking television show, screened in Jan 2006, entitled (unsurprisingly) “Pay Off Your Mortgage In 2 Years”, in which he gave advice to 8 families on how this might be achieved.

In a follow-up series (“Did They Pay Off Their Mortgage In 2 Years?”), screened in Jan 2007, he revisited these same 8 families to find out if they achieved their goal – with, it must be said, somewhat variable success.

The advice itself isn’t exactly rocket science (minimise living expenses and maximise income). What made this new and different was the almost fanatically single-minded approach, where families were encouraged to devote all their activities to money-making schemes while simultaneously cutting out all the little luxuries and creature comforts we all take for granted.

So, is his advice valid? – Well, probably yes, if perhaps a little too single-minded for some people.

After all, for most of us money is merely a means to end (it buys us what we really want – a comfortable lifestyle), but Mr Carayol’s advice transforms money into the primary goal.

So the question is not whether or not the technique is valid (because it clearly is) but more whether or not you’re prepared to essentially put your life on hold for two years, which is by no means an easy proposition.

So who is the Russian billionaire buying the world’s most expensive property?

The sale of La Léopolda, a sumptuous villa on the Côte d’Azur set in 8 hectares of immaculately kept land, is set to be finalised in September after months of negotiations.

Its price tag, is understood to be between £312m-£392m, which would smash the record for the greatest amount of money ever paid for a property.

The property is located in the picturesque coastal village near Nice.

Rumours that the owner of Chelsea football club, Roman Abramovich, was adding another home to his property empire were swiftly denied so the identity of the property buyer continues a mystery.

The only thing known about the buyer is that he is one of the growing number of Russians who are descending on the south of France, it is believed to have wanted La Léopolda so badly that he raised his offer to extreme heights.

According to a regional legal expert, many potential buyers on the Côte d’Azur are motivated by nostalgia, he says: ‘The new Russians attach a great deal of sentimental value to the region where the Russian aristocracy used to come on holiday 70 years ago.’

The deal looks certain to put previous property deals in the shade. The previous record holder bought a property in west London for £80m.

The property, set in rolling grounds dotted with more than a thousand olive, lemon and orange trees, was built at the turn of the century by the Belgian king Léopold II.

Sounds lovely, But I’m not sure hundreds of millions lovely!

The BBC is reporting that The Bank of England has kept interest rates on hold at 5% as it struggles to deal with a slowing economy and increasing inflation. they Say:

Many reports have shown the economy heading for a significant slowdown or even a recession. 

But the Monetary Policy Committee’s primary goal is to keep inflation at 2% and it currently stands at 3.8%.

Although the bulk of members voted to hold rates last month, one supported a cut, while another backed an increase.

Some analysts had forecast rates would rise this month to tackle inflation.

Hetal Mehta, senior economic advisor at Ernest And Young says:

"It should not have come as surprise to anyone that, on balance, the bank felt it could do nothing but sit tight this month - a situation that is likely to prevail for a few more months."

However, the fall in the price of oil, from peaks of $147 a barrel last month to about $120 may allow rates to be cut as early as November"

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