Jamaica's Minister of Finance Audley Shaw announced during his budget presentation on Monday April 24 that effective January 1, 2010, stamp duty will be reduced from 4.5% to 3%, and transfer tax from 5% to 4%. This will result in savings for both buyers and sellers, and although the implementation of this measure is 9 months away, it means that persons selling property at that time can accept a deposit of 10% (as opposed to the regular 15%) since both stamp duty and transfer tax are normally paid out of the buyers downpayment.

Certainly this will most certainly be a timely and welcome reduction when it is in fact implemented, and we can't help but think how much it would help to boost the slow sales that agents are reporting in the upper end of the market if implemented sooner, but hopefully it will coincide with a reduction in mortgage rates and put the industry back on a positive path.