He stood up and spoke for an hour and a half but in the end it turned out the famous red box was empty, there was nothing in his Budget for the housing market, no changes to tax and nothing specifically on Stamp Duty which some tax consultants had expected would be in the spotlight.
Nothing in the Treasury Red Book and precious little in the latest OBR report that has been published today other than to confirm that they still expect house prices nationally to fall a little further (by another 5% in 2023?) and for transaction volumes to fall to around 1m.
