If you have a house worth £1m + which you might want to sell one day — and plenty of people in Oxfordshire have — prepare to sell it now.

That seems to be the message from the Chancellor in last week’s budget. On the other hand, if you are a first-time buyer wanting to buy a house costing up to £250,000, the chancellor had some good news for you too.

But how will the changes in stamp duty — five per cent on houses £1m plus from April next year and nil for first time buyers on houses up to £250,000 — affect the Oxfordshire property scene?.

Chris Mundy, tax partner at accountants and business advisers Grant Thornton, said: “Oxfordshire is a pretty mixed bag for property and I think there will be winners all round, at any rate in the first year.

“It will be a stimulus in the short-term as people hasten to sell £1m houses before the new stamp duty rate comes in.

“And a stimulus at the top end of the market does cascade down the chain while the nil rate for first time buyers of houses up to £250,000 will be a further encouragement.”

Until now the threshold for stamp duty was £125,000. The new £250,000 threshold will stay in place (unless an incoming government changes things radically) until March 25 2011. In 2009, 78 per cent of all property transactions in England and Wales were below the £250,000 mark.

In fact the only “losers” Mr Mundy could discern, short-term, were people who bought houses for about £175,000 between the end of December last year, when the stamp duty holiday on houses up to that price ended, and Budget day last week, when the new nil rate was introduced.

But he added: “In the past, when there was a stamp duty holiday for properties up to a certain level, sellers used to put houses on the market at just below the level where it kicked in.

“So, I imagine after April 5 next year there could be houses selling at just below £1m. Or some sellers might say that the houses are selling for less but the price of furnishings take it over the mark.

“Similarly, we may see houses now selling for just below the £250,000 level.”

In other words, the new stamp duties might cause a short-term boost without causing prices to accelerate in the long term — which Mr Mundy agreed seemed like sensible policy.

In towns with a lot of student accommodation, such as Oxford, the duty holiday for first time buyers could also affect demand as better-off parents of students might become guarantors for their offspring — who in turn qualify as first-time buyers and who would find the income from letting out rooms to other students very handy.

Indeed the Bath Building Society is already pushing its “Buy for Uni Morrtage”, specially designed for such people and offering 100 per cent of the price of digs up to £250,000.

Mr Mundy noted that the Chancellor left the threshold for Inheritance Tax at £325,000 but recommended anyone with estates worth that or more to start planning their affairs now, a process that could mean transferring assets to heirs.

Clever, rich people on the move, for instance, could get ahead of the stamp duty increase at the top end by selling their home now, and take advantage of the stamp duty holiday at the other end of the ladder by helping their Oxford undergraduate child buy a first property, while at the same time reducing their potential exposure to Inheritance Tax.

Oxfordshire estate agents Connells were upbeat about the Budget changes.

A statement read: “If anyone is thinking of buying or selling a property likely to be worth between £125,000 and £250,000 they should take action now to be sure of beating the expected rush of first time buyers.”

Sue West of Connells in Bicester said: “The decision by Alistair Darling in the recent Budget will inject further confidence into the housing market, which is great for all home owners, as increased activity at the lower end of the property market will inevitably filter up to more expensive properties.”

Despite the euphoria though, activity, according to national figures released this week by the Bank of England, is desperately needed. The figures show that mortgage approvals fell in February to a nine-month low, further fuelling speculation that the so-called recovery is stalling.

New buyer inquiries rose slightly in February but at a slower rate than in the last two quarters of 2009, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Some say the December end of the stamp duty holiday for properties up to £175,000, and the cold snaps in January and February contributed to this.

But divisional managing director for Connells Tim Wardley, whose patch covers Northamptonshire and parts of Lincolnshire, Buckinghamshire, and Warwickshire said that Oxfordshire was doing better than most.

He said: “Entry level in Oxfordshire is about £190,000, but that £2,000 or so in stamp duty relief will definitely help. Sometimes quite a small sum can make the difference between affording a first home and not affording it.”

At the high end of the market, Giles Lawton of Savills’ Oxford office, said: “We‘ve already seen one or two people coming into the office wanting to sell houses for over £1m who have brought their plans forward because of the Budget.

“Of course it won’t affect people selling very expensive houses. Last month we sold one house in Oxfordshire for £5m and another for £7m.

“We seem to be lucky in Oxfordshire, the market is very resilient. We’re not bomb proof but there has been a lot of activity this year. We always seem to bounce back more quickly here than in some areas, and prices always seem to reach higher than previous peaks.”

Perhaps this has something to do with bankers’ bonuses. Last year Mr Lawton told The Oxford Times that Oxfordshire was a popular area for bankers from the City to buy houses and that bumper bonuses were expected.

Meanwhile Mr Mundy said: “I should think the stamp-duty relief will be hard to police. It is up to buyers to declare whether or not they have owned a property anywhere in the world before.”

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs can of course search Land Registry and council tax returns to check the veracity of buyers’ statements.

The rules are strict. For instance, a first-time buyer buying a house in partnership with someone who has previously bought a house would not be eligible for the stamp-duty relief.

And the property must be the buyer’s main home, so buy-to-let properties are excluded. However, a couple could put the house in the name of whoever has never owned a property before but then, of course, legal and registration charges would be incurred if the property were subsequently transferred into joint ownership.

Mr Mundy warned: “Obviously we would never recommend anyone to say they had not owned a property before if there was any doubt about that. To do so would be an offence.”