‘Mass exodus’ north sparks 8.6pc surge in property prices
SCOTLAND’S property market outperformed the rest of the UK thanks to a surge in sales at the end of last year.
One leading estate agent said a trickle of buyers from England looking for properties in Scotland had become ‘a mass exodus’.
House prices in November were up 8.6 per cent on the year before, a stronger performance than in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
It means the average house price north of the Border is now £165,703.
This figure lags some way behind the rest of the UK, where the average is £249,633.
However, the Scottish market also crossed the finishing line in September with the highest percentage of sales in the UK, up 17.8 per cent on the previous year.
By comparison, England saw a drop in total sales that month of 13.3 per cent, Wales’s figures plunged 28.8 per cent and there was a fall of 22.9 per cent in Northern Ireland.
Davina Raselli, of buying agent Garrington Property Finders, said: ‘With more than a third of Britain’s workers still working full-time from home, more professionals are cutting the cord with the office to embrace remote working.
‘As a result, we have seen a steady stream of English buyers looking for better value north of the Border. What began as a trickle is fast becoming a mass exodus. Rural parts of Perthshire and Stirlingshire have done particularly well.’
Last year, the Scottish property market remained out of action for a month longer than England due to stricter coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
Janet Egdell, the accountable officer for Registers of Scotincrease, land, said: ‘The volume of transactions in September 2020 was high, catching up on some of the reduction in activity in the market in the previous months.’
Terraced properties showed the largest increase of any house type, rising by 10 per cent in the year to November 2020 to an average of £139,874.
Flats showed the smallest perhaps because locked down families opted to move to larger homes.
This kind of property rose by 6.8 per cent in the year to an average of £117,109.
Price increases were found in 31 of the 32 local authority areas. Only Aberdeen City showed a drop, of 3.4 per cent to an average of £140,629.
The area demonstrating the biggest increase was East Ayrshire, which saw a 15.6 per cent rise to an average of £110,073.
Edinburgh was the most expensive, with the average property now costing £287,239.
Meanwhile, the head of Scotland’s only independent building society has warned the impact of Covid-19 could prevent a generation of buyers getting on the housing ladder.
Paul Denton of Scottish Building Society said: ‘House prices have soared disproportionally relative to income, and many young people struggle to save for deposits which can be close to their annual salary.’
‘A stream of English buyers’