Oh, but first, is this the last tarah for buy to lead?

Blamed on landlords and second home buyers rushing to beat the April change in stamp duty.

Mortgage ending skyrocketed almost 60% in March.

That works out at 25.7 billion pounds dished out last month, 43% more than in February.

So why the wash? Here's share radio's Ed Bowsher.

Investors were trying to avoid this big rise in stamp duty that only applies to buy-to-let

property, second homes and holiday homes. And they're increasing stamp duty by 3%, which

doesn't sound much, but the way it's being applied can work out as very substantial because it's being applied

to all of the value of the property. So, for example, a £300,000 home, if you bought it under the

old rules, you'd be paying £5,000 stamp duty. If you buy it under the new rules that have just

come in, it's an extra £9,000, so you're paying £14,000 in Stamp Duty if you're a

buy-to-let landlord or someone buying a second home. So obviously that's a massive increase in

costs for the landlord. Well, it is indeed. Change is not to be sniffed out on a £250,000 home

the new Stamp Duty bill would be £12,000 compared to £3,750 £750 previously. We're also hearing house prices in cities such as Liverpool,

Cardiff and Southampton have increased to a 12-year high. Now, Alice Martin is a housing economist

at the New Economics Foundation. I asked her whether she thought this stamp duty in other

measures would help the housing crisis. I think people are sceptical as to if they'll make any difference whatsoever in the long term

because you can still turn a massive profit from owning a second home and writing it out,

both from the rental income, particularly if you live somewhere like London,

if your house is somewhere like London, but also because there's an expectation that house prices will rise

in the way that they have been doing,

tinkering around the edges with changes to stamp duty won't really have a big impact on the amount of money flooding into property.

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