Tuesday 10 May 2016 10:03 am

Here’s how stamp duty changes affected landlords’ returns in March

The chancellor's stamp duty hike may have been aimed at quelling the nation's frenzy for buy to let homes – but it seems property remains a great provider.

That's according to new research by Property Partner, anyway, which has suggested total returns on residential property rose to 9.6 per cent in the year to March.

In the capital, that figure was even higher – at 16.5 per cent – despite the fact house prices jumped in the last few months of the period after the chancellor announced plans to hike stamp duty on buy to let homes by three per cent from 1 April.

The monthly figure was less encouraging, with total monthly returns falling 0.31 per cent in March. For the South East, that figure was 0.23 per cent, while in London it still edged up 0.4 per cent – although that was significantly lower than January's peak of 2.53 per cent.

When you break the annual return figure down, London landlords were (not surprisingly) at the lower end of the scale when it came to income return, which stood at about 2.6 per cent, versus 3.36 per cent across the whole of the UK – and four per cent in the North East.

But that was balanced out by capital return – a jump in house prices in London caused capital return to jump 13.57 per cent in the year to March, more than twice the national figure of 6.03 per cent, and significantly higher than the 9.66 per cent return experienced by buy to let investors in the rest of the South East.

But Rob Weaver, Property Partner's director of investment, suggested the EU referendum may cause a touch of pessimism.

"Investors are understandably showing caution ahead of the EU referendum. But the fundamentals – high employment, wage growth, cheap borrowing and the chronic shortage of supply – remain in place and we are positive."