"Stamp duty axed below £175,000"

Woo hoo! They are getting desperate now.

As the BBC helpfully point out in the second paragraph "The current £125,000 threshold will be raised from Wednesday in a move aimed at kick-starting the housing market." So, big deal. Further, with prices falling faster than 1% a month, all a purchaser has to do is delay his purchase by a month, then another month, and another ...

We know that even a complete Stamp Duty holiday wouldn't work. The Tories tried it in 1991; it didn't work then and it won't work now.

This "30% interest free loan" idea won't work either.

The gummint appears to have overlooked the fact that the larger homebuilders, e.g. Bovis, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey have been offering what are effectively interest free loans of 25% of the purchase price for months, has that 'kickstarted the market' for newbuilds? Nope.