THE PANDEMIC HOUSING BOOM

++ Prices rocket as buyers flee rat race ++ Homes selling BEFORE they’ve been viewed ++ Highlands and Islands are new hotspots

SCOTLAND is in the grip of a coronavirus housing boom as people now able to work from home escape to the country.

surging interest in rural havens north of the Border is being fuelled by workers desperate to flee the rat race and improve their quality of life.

thousands of house hunters from england are flocking to smaller communities in the highlands and Islands, as well as areas such as North ayrshire and the more rural parts of the Lothians.

estate agents say they are also experiencing ‘exceptional interest’ from hong Kong. It is thought repression in the former British colony and favourable exchange rates are encouraging buyers.

Quality of life, outdoor space, working from home and the lower threat of Covid-19 were cited by people looking to move.

estate agent James Whitson, of rettie in edinburgh, said: ‘I have sold property to people from asia in the last four weeks who have not even viewed the property. It has all been done on video conferencing.

‘I have never done that before in my life. It is unheard of.’

arran has a property waiting list because of the ‘intensity’ of demand for homes.

there is concern in some communities, however, that the influx of new blood is pushing

up house prices to unsustainable levels. In some cases, property is selling for around 20 per cent above the home report value within days of going on the market.

Ken McEwan, of Edinburgh-based McEwan Fraser Legal, said: ‘In my professional opinion, there are a lot of people acting very irrationally right now. I won’t mention any details, but we sold one property in the Borders for £100,000 over the asking price on a £250,000 property.

‘I think people are sleepwalking into it and are delusional about what is going to happen after the furlough finishes. There is going to be a lot of people losing their jobs and I don’t think we realise how dangerous it is going to be.’

One potential buyer from England, Julian Shaw, told the BBC how he drove through the night to view properties in Moray.

He said: ‘I was driving nine-and-a-half hours yesterday, with a lot of breaks. Covid has touched my life through furlough and now unfortunately redundancy.

‘It is very much a case of me trying to analyse how I live and possibly become mortgage-free.’

Mr McEwan said his firm has had around 1,500 viewing inquiries for properties across Scotland, with 500 of them received in the past three months from potential buyers in England.

He said: ‘In my 30-plus years in the property market I’ve never seen it so buoyant, with so much pent-up demand and so many buyers acting irrationally, with offers way above the home report value for properties in the most desirable areas. English buyers are outbidding many Scottish buyers. We are also seeing exceptional interest from buyers from Hong Kong.’

Mr McEwan said there was a waiting list for some properties on Arran, and added: ‘Buyers are mostly looking to buy in the Highlands for a better quality of life due to threats of Covid-19, and are paying off their mortgages with the higher sales prices that can be achieved in many parts of England for their houses.’

But he predicts that the market will begin to ‘seriously correct itself’ towards the end of this year and at the start of 2021.

Faisal Choudhry, of estate agent Savills, said much of the foreign interest was down to a favourable exchange rate. He said: ‘Scottish properties have looked good value for some time, particularly for those buying in foreign currencies. The foreign currency saving has been apparent over the last five years.

‘When the Brexit vote happened in 2016, a pound would get you about $1.55. So a £1million property would be $1.55million. The pound as of today is $1.32, so that’s a saving of $230,000. ’

But he added: ‘Longer-term, the international market will be dictated by the extent to which Covid-19 has impacted on global wealth generation, and early indicators suggest the effect hasn’t been as severe as we had originally anticipated.’

Mr Whitson, of Rettie, said: ‘We have never seen such an intensity as over the last two months, it is greater than anything I have seen before. There is a new-found confidence. Over the past few months, those who were considering moving here, or thought about it, now have had that cemented.

‘As an example of the top end in Edinburgh, I put a house on the market for £3.5million in June and within ten days I had five notes of interest – two from Asia, one from London and two from Edinburgh, which sums up the buying power of what is going on.

‘There are huge numbers of people in London, particularly young professionals who grew up here and went to university and to work in London, who are now looking to move back to Scotland.

‘There is also a lot of old Scottish money in Hong Kong, and a lot of people with Scots roots are seriously looking at coming back here because of all the issues out there.’

Mr Whitson added: ‘Our closing dates are tracking at 10 per cent and sometimes 20 per cent above the housing report value.’

Property inquiries from those looking to view or requesting more information on a property are up by 178 per cent in August, compared with March. Valuation requests from those looking to sell their home have risen 213 per cent.

Figures compiled by property site Rightmove also show a rise in the number of city dwellers looking to move to the country.

In June and July, the number of inquiries from people in ten major cities across the UK rose by 78 per cent compared with the same period last year, it said.

The biggest increase has come from people in Edinburgh looking to move out of the city, with inquiries doubling for moves to areas such as West Linton, Peeblesshire.

The average asking price in Edinburgh is £276,879, while the typical West Linton home is £365,888.

Inquiries from those living in

Glasgow rose by 60 per cent, with most looking to move to the Bridge of Weir area. The typical asking price in Glasgow is £154,680, compared with £221,830 in the Renfrewshire town.

The exodus comes after estate agents reported a surge in Londoners looking to move to rural Scotland after homeworking during lockdown showed they could do their jobs anywhere.

Mr Whitson added: ‘We have 1,000 people looking for property across Edinburgh at the moment, across all pricing points. Under normal circumstances it would be a quarter of that.

‘I am now working 17 to 18-hour days to meet the demand.

‘People are realising that they don’t have to be near their office any more and now want a different kind of life.’