No change

I feel I can write about yesterday's property news with more clarity today.

As virtually all the commentators have pointed out the stamp duty changes don't really affect people looking to buy in London as much as in some areas, however they might help me to some extent.

I was looking in the £200,000 or so bracket, I think (all things bank, interest rate, charges etc being equal). I would like the smallest mortgage possibly and it's possible that this news will help me.

Realistically for what I want I am already looking at properties out of my price range, because there aren't really any in my price range, and am hoping I can make cheeky offers. So I'm looking at properties 10-20% above budget- and I would love to come in under budget!

Now this news might mean I can make even more cheeky offers, at around the £174,999 price. However there is certainly no guarantee they would be accepted. It is still about a vendor being happy to take an offer. My offer would be low but I would intend to stick to it bar anything coming up in terms of extra costs in surveys and so on. I am not looking to gazump someone.

However looking outside my own situation this new legislation seems potentially extremely damaging for anyone looking to sell for between £175k and £225k or above. If I had bought a flat in recent years and was needing to sell now I would be very unhappy with the government.

As a potential buyer I feel a real lack of confidence in the government's ability to hold firm with policies and to try and have a long term outlook.

I am first and foremost looking for a roof over my head and a place to make a home; a secure place of my own where I can live my life. We have all been trained into thinking that with a home purchase we will also get a gain in value. This has to be seen as an extra and is not my only reason for looking to buy. However I plainly don't want to lose money that I have worked hard to save ever since I left University. I'm afraid I don't feel confident the government won't totally change all their plans again in 6 months time and I don't feel like they really want to help me!

If they had wanted to help me they could have tried a year or two years ago, or even four years ago. They didn't seem interested then, they were very happy for my parents who had worked hard all their lives to now approaching retirement act as guarantors on a huge loan for me (I would not have been). They were very happy for me to buy a property if I was a key worker, but I'm not, except that I pay lots of tax, which is in some ways key. They were very happy for me to have to consider living an hour and a half away and pay £3k a year in rail fares. Or perhaps I could have moved somewhere else entirely, away from all my family friends and connections so that I could live in a small affordable flat somewhere where I knew no one and had no quality of life at all.