Scottish buyers 'may still be affected by crunch'

The Scottish housing market is still feeling the impact of the slump in house prices throughout the rest of the UK, it has been claimed. In a report that may be of interest to househunters hoping to buy a house in Scotland, Teresa Hunter, writing for Scotland on Sunday pointed out that Scottish buyers still have to “borrow from the same pool of mortgages”. She stated that although Abbey and the Bank of Scotland have ‘trimmed’ their deals recently, prices remain high and may do for some time. “Undeniably the market is slowing, and I’m not convinced Scotland can remain immune, although it may sidestep the excessive price corrections already evident in some overcooked hotspots in the south,” she said. However, the figures appear to disagree, with the March Halifax House Price Index indicating that over the last ten years Scotland has experienced a 271 per cent increase in house prices.