Investors - worried that the Chancellor might back-track on plans to cut capital gains tax (CGT) on property - will be heartened that Alistair Darling is pressing ahead. From April, people who own second or rental homes will have their CGT bill cut from as much as 40 per cent of their profits to just 18 per cent.

Agents are divided on whether buy-to-let investors, who favour the cheaper homes once snapped up by first-time buyers, will choose to exit the market or will sink the extra profits into yet more properties for renovation and eventual resale.

Some believe that the new rules may offer overwhelmed amateur investors a way out. Neil Chegwidden, head of residential research at Jones Lang LaSalle, notes that the new regime will most benefit those who purchased within the past two years (and would have been liable for the highest rates of CGT under the current system). It is this group of investors - many of them beginners, seduced by the easy money others made in the housing market, but now aware that the market is shakier - who will be most grateful for an opportunity for a low-cost exit.

Sadly, owner-occupiers who might have been hoping to join the fray are increasingly frustrated by a lack of easy credit. Buyers are increasingly facing sudden demands for larger deposits from lenders, a factor that has caused some transactions to fail.

The buying and selling that the CGT changes will probably prompt in cheaper postcodes may also be reflected in agencies in Central London. After years of growth, the health of the market for prime property has been unsettled by changes to non-domicile taxation rules. Estate agents in Mayfair, Kensington and Chelsea have reported that many foreign homeowners are proposing to sell up rather than trust the Government's assurances that it does not not intend to tax them too heavily.

Foreign nationals accounted for 50 per cent of all buyers in prime Central London last year. Jonathan Hewlett, head of residential sales in London at Savills, says: “A substantial proportion of prospective overseas buyers and existing overseas owners have been reviewing their options, pending the outcome of the Government's deliberations.”

Any hope of a reversal of that policy, due to take effect next month, was scuppered with the Budget. Now all that remains is to estimate who will feel the pain most acutely. Lucian Cook, director of research at Savills, says: “The extremely wealthy are unlikely to baulk at the scale of the charge, and so the major concern has been among the brokers, bankers and hedge fund managers.”

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