Welcome to your quarterly property review: Scotland from Edinburgh Self Storage. The only storage solution when you’re property hopping and need a secure storage solution.
Perhaps the most interesting development this quarter was in June and the release of The Registers of Scotland 20-year review of the Scottish property market.
Review of Scottish property market
Here are some of its key findings.
In 2023-24, approximately two-thirds of residential property sales in Scotland fell between £40,000 and £250,000, while there were 404 residential sales priced over £1 million, down slightly on the 427 sales in 2022-23.
The widest range of prices were in East Renfrewshire where there were 60% of sales lying between £160,000 and £455,000
House type
Spotlighting house type in 2023-24, detached properties had the highest median price of all property types, at £305,000. Flats, on the other hand, had the lowest at £128,500.
Despite flats having the highest volume of sales, over the past ten years they experienced the slowest growth in prices at 29%, compared with around 41-48% for other house types.
New builds
In 2023-2024, there were 9,867 new build residential property sales in Scotland, 20% less than in 2022-23 – with 11% of residential property sales in Scotland being new builds.
The median price of a new build property in Scotland was £300,000, 5% higher than 2022-23 and 62% higher than the overall median for Scotland of £185,000.
The overall value of the new build residential property market in Scotland was £3.3 billion
Cities
The city housing market accounted for 31% of all residential property sales in Scotland in 2023-2024, and in the past 20 years, the growth in prices in every city has been slower than the price growth in the rest of Scotland.
The volume of sales fell in the last year in every city, by more than the drop in sales for the rest of Scotland. Edinburgh had the highest median price in 2023-24 at £265,000 and Aberdeen had the lowest at £127,250.
Urban/Rural
Accessible rural areas had the highest median price of all areas in 2023-24 at £265,000 and have shown the highest price growth in the last 5 years with 38% growth. They have consistently demonstrated the highest prices every year for the past 5 years .
The mix of residential property sales in rural areas is different to urban areas, with urban areas having a much larger proportion of flats, and rural areas more detached houses. This affects the median prices since flats tend to be cheaper than detached houses.
Although the overall median for accessible rural areas was significantly higher than for urban areas, the median price for each property type in accessible rural areas was lower than in large urban areas.
Mortgage market and cash sales
In 2023-24, the volume of residential sales with a mortgage was 59,367, 64% of the residential market, while the volume of residential cash sales was 34,930, 36% of the residential market.
The volume of all mortgage securities registered by RoS across all property types, including both mortgage sales and remortgage/additional borrowing, was 99,233, a decrease of 23% when compared with 2022-23.
Non-residential market
And finally, a look at the non-residential market in 2023-24.
There were 7,514 non-residential sales with a total market value of £3.6 billion, 4,257 commercial sales, an increase of 1% from 2022-23, and 757 commercial leases, an increase of 11% from 2022-23.
In other news
Average Scottish rent rises
According to Rightmove’s May analysis, the average monthly rent outside London hit an all-time high of £1,316 – 7% up on last year.
While the average rent in London is £2,652 per month, 4% higher than a year earlier, the average advertised rent in Scotland was £1,067 in May, up 9% year-on-year.
The pace of growth in rental prices hit a peak of 12% two years ago and while it’s eased, remains higher than the “more normal” level of around 2% per year pre-pandemic levels.
A better balance between supply and demand in London has contributed to a slowing of rental price growth, while Scotland is right now the hardest hit by supply and demand imbalances.
Reduction in SME home building
New research by the representative body Homes for Scotland (HFS) reveals a reduction in the small and medium (SME) home building sector in Scotland.
It says that the proportion of new homes sold by those building between three and 49 homes per annum has dropped from 40% in 2017 to 20% in 2023. Prior to the financial crisis, SMEs were delivering 3,000 more new homes each year than they are now.
A return to this level could, adds the report, support an additional 13,200 jobs.
ros.gov.uk
rightmove.co.uk
homesforscotland.com
