Figures from various sources confirm that the Scottish House market is changing a little, with prices stabilising and even starting to increase slowly again. The Registers of Scotland – where every Scottish house transaction is recorded – state that prices have gone up in the third quarter (July to September) by 6.1% from the second quarter. That leaves the average price of a residential property in Scotland at £154,453. The national average figures of course disguise significant regional variations, and in six local authority regions prices were still shown to be falling. The biggest rise was in Perth and Kinross at 15% and the biggest loss was in Renfrewshire with a loss of 3.7%. The picture therefore remains very mixed but at least after two years of bad news clearly there are some signs of a market returning to health. Solicitors and estate agents, however report that trading volumes are still down and this is confirmed by the Registers who state that five thousand less house transactions took place in the third quarter this year compared with 2008. Kirsty Jack, Property Manager at Caesar and Howie and who works closely with the Kupdom Project states “There are clearly some positive signs but our sales volumes remain at about half the level of two years ago. I would say however that there are many people who would wish to buy but who still cannot get mortgage finance. The house buying culture is still strong in Scotland and as the financial world slowly returns to normal I predict a slow improvement in prices and sales volumes over the next few years. People buying a house now, I think will look back in a few years and think they have got a bargain”.
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