Edinburgh fastest place to sell £1m home
● Million-pound properties in the capital sell twice as fast as the national average
Edinburgh is among the best places in the UK to sell a million pound home, only bettered by Cambridge, a report has found.
Properties in the capital worth over £1 million take an average of just 53 days to be snapped up by a buyer – 23 days faster than last year and almost twice as fast as the national average of 99 days.
Scotland as a whole is one of the fastest regions to sell a £1m-plus home, with a typical property going in just 94 days, 19 days faster than twelve months ago.
In contrast, it takes sellers in Wales 174 days to sell a topend property – the slowest in Britain.
The top five fastest selling £1m locations are all outside London, with Harpenden, situated close to St Albans, sharing second place with the Scottish capital, according to the analysis by Rightmove.
Bristol and St Albans complete the top five, with top-end homes there selling in 54 days and 60 days on average.
Rightmove housing market analyst Miles Shipside said: “Hotspots like Cambridge have helped the east of England take over the mantle from London in recent years.”
He continued: “The Scottish £1m-plus market has also picked up as the increased activity in the overall housing market in Scotland is having a
0 The typical £1m property in Scotland sells in 94 days positiveknock-oneffectonthe higher end.”
He added: “Those lucky enough to be selling a home worth a £1m or more should think carefully about what they can do to make their home stand out.
“They should also bear in mind that it could take some months to secure an offer so putting their home on the market now will prevent a mad rush to find a buyer when they find something that they have their heart set on.”
The research was based on property listings for homes marketed at £1m or more on Rightmove’s website, looking at the number of days between apropertyfirstbeinglistedand being marked as under offer or sold subject to contract.
Simon Rettie, managing director of Scottish high-end estate agency Rettie and Co, said that the initial impact of the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT), was beginning to improve, adding that sales at the top end of the market were picking up.
The tax, which was introduced by the Scottish Government in April 2015, can see an extra £45,000 added to the cost of a £1m home if the property is bought in Scotland.
Property professionals warned in advance of its introduction that it could impact the higher end of the market and the Scottish Government is coming under increasing pressure to reconsider the measure.
Rettie said in the report: “When the LBTT was first introduced a few years ago it did temporarily slow down sales of homes at the top end of the market, but as confidence and demand has picked up in the overall Scottish market recently, this has led to £1m homes selling much more quickly again.
“Over the past year the number of new homes selling in this price bracket have significantly increased as well, with no onward chains helping to speed up sales. Eight of the top 10 fastest hotspots are selling £1m homes more quickly than in 2017.
The two exceptions in the list are Cambridge, which is one day slower than last year and Bristol, where the average time to sell has increased by 18 days from a speedy 36 days a year ago.
A report published by estate agent Mcewan Fraser Legal a year ago found that the LBTT had caused £1m-plus transactions to plummet in the first half of 2017.