More than one in 10 homeowners have tried to move house but decided against it due to stamp duty or mortgage issues, research for Nottingham Building Society showed.
Its study of 1,073 homeowners found 11 per cent had given up plans to move house in the past three years due to financial issues including mortgages.
Meanwhile the cost of stamp duty stopped around 8 per cent and 3 per cent of owners were turned down for mortgages.
Ian Gibbons, senior mortgage broking manager at Nottingham Mortgage Services, said: “The mortgage market is generally performing well with growth in remortgaging and for loans to first-time buyers with strong competition from lenders.
“There are a wide range of deals and advice available for all types of borrowers but the home moving market is still not expanding which points to wider issues than simply mortgages or stamp duty as the blocks in the market.
“Home movers clearly are also struggling to find suitable homes to move to which turns the spotlight on improving their existing homes rather than moving.”
Younger home movers – those aged between 18 and 44 – were most likely to be put off by the cost of stamp duty with around 14 per cent who had given up buying blaming this.
Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed the number of people moving house is currently in a “stubbornly persistent” lull.
Around £4.9bn was lent for home movers in January which was 4 per cent lower than the previous year and 25 per cent lower than the previous month.
The Nottingham’s research found the biggest block on home moving was a lack of suitable houses to move to.
Around 25 per cent of homeowners said they had looked but could not find a suitable house.
But around 30 per cent of homeowners said they could not afford to move home so were concentrating on improving their house.
damian.fantato@ft.com