House buyers in Kent could continue saving up to £15,000 on new homes - as the UK's stamp duty holiday is set to be extended.

The tax relief period was due to end on March 31 but Chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to extend it until the end of June as part of his spring budget next week.

It will mean buyers continuing to pay no stamp duty on all properties under £500,000. Previously, the charge was payable on all properties over £125,000.

The scheme was introduced last July to give the housing market a much-needed boost after the first national lockdown - and there have been calls for it to be extended.

Charlie Bainbridge, director of Canterbury estate agency Charles Bainbridge, said: "I think it will probably be a relief for a lot of people, particularly those who already have sales going who might have been struggling to get them through in time for the deadline.

"I think it could then create another wave of activity through to summer, from people who have been deliberating about whether to move in the spring.

"That will then coincide with the traditional time of year when people are naturally more active in the market, with the longer evenings and prettier gardens and things."

A boost in properties coming on the market would spell good news for the county, where in many areas demand is currently outstripping supply.

Estate agents lost three months of trade last year, when the housing market was frozen during the first lockdown.

Thanks to the stamp duty holiday, there was a surge in sales in the latter half of 2020.

But experts say the flurry of people selling their homes during autumn and winter has seen fewer properties put on the market this year, as they would have been unlikely to complete by the March 31 deadline.

Mr Bainbridge said: "There's definitely a slightly higher demand than there is supply at the moment, which bolsters prices."

But with the UK's pathway out of lockdown paved and a tax holiday extension on the cards, he says the situation is looking promising.

"A wave of people, particularly the more senior generation, would have put moving on hold during the worst of the Covid period," he said.

"We've already had contact from some of those people, that are now thinking 'OK we've had our first vaccination, there's a plan out of lockdown'.

"I think we'll probably see an uplift in numbers over the next four to eight weeks."

Mr Bainbridge says the pandemic has had an impact on buying patterns, with a surge in people relocating from cities to village locations and multiple generations of some families pooling their resources so they can live together.

"There's such a high demand that people can demand crazy prices. Everything and anything is getting snapped up."

"Houses with annexes or the facility to create an annex for mum and dad have been quite popular over the last few months and I think that will continue," he added.

Alfie Smith, sales negotiator at Mark Smith Estate Agents, says Whitstable too is seeing "far more demand than there is property on the market".

He says things have slowed down this year, with "nowhere near" as many properties as usual listed, while the surge in house hunters is seeing properties sell for above asking price.

"A house that probably would have got £500,000 on the market at the end of 2019, coming into this year someone would have paid £525,000 comfortably for it, if not a little bit more," said Mr Smith.

"There's such a high demand that people can demand crazy prices. Everything and anything is getting snapped up."

But Mr Smith feels the stamp duty holiday should end as planned on March 31.

"It is a case of getting things back to as normal as we can," he said. "We may as well start that process now rather than [later]."

Peter Goodwin, manager at estate agents Wilbee and Son, says the picture is similar in Herne Bay.

"The prices in Herne Bay did get a bit carried away in the last six months," he said. "We were seeing figures like we'd never seen before.

"The demand for property in the area is still very very high, especially at the bottom end of the market."

"When something comes on that's well priced it's flying out of the door and we're getting generally asking price, if not higher."

Regarding the end of the stamp duty holiday, Mr Goodwin suggests the government should bring in a tiered system, allowing an exemption for first-time buyers entering the property ladder on the lower rungs.

He is hopeful that the end of lockdown restrictions could see a "spending frenzy" among movers.

"It could make the property market rise again, it may not," he said. "Maybe people will hang onto what they've got and get heavily again into DIY and [renovations]."

Richard Gates, owner of estate agency Saxon Shore, says in Faversham too, house prices are "slightly increasing because of a lack of supply".

"When something comes on that's well priced it's flying out of the door and we're getting generally asking price, if not higher," he said.

"But as we go into a normal market and lockdown eases I expect the supply problem to ease and prices to level off."

He too feels the stamp duty holiday should end as planned on March 31.

"I think it forced people to make a decision earlier than they might have been planning to, but over time it's not going to increase the volume," he said. "Personally I think we should just go back to normal."

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