High-end homes keep a foot in the city

A low-maintenance pied a terre can be the ultimate Edinburgh luxury purchase, finds Kirsty Mcluckie

Whether it is a place to stay during the working week to avoid a daily commute or a luxury purchase to allow monthly theatre and shopping trips, a pied a terre is the dream of many who live outside the city.

In Edinburgh, they are hotly contested properties, with interested buyers coming from other parts of Scotland and the UK, and the rest of the world.

Retaining a foothold in the Edinburgh market is highly prized by Scottish expats, particularly those who still have family living in the city or children being privately educated here.

Freelance relocation agent Louise Ferguson says that clients on the lookout for these types of properties often want something low maintenance, with the added security of an onsite factor or concierge service.

She says: “Buyers are looking for somewhere to spend a month of the year, perhaps to get away from the heat of the Middle East, for example, but they do not want the bother of upkeep year round.

“Many will have children at school or university in the area and want a place to stay, that isn’t a hotel, when they are visiting. But you are competing, as a buyer, with companies who want to invest in a corporate flat for employees and those wealthy overseas families who are buying for their student children.”

Currently top of the pied a terre offerings on the market in the city is the City & Country conversion of the historic Playfair at Donaldson’s building on Wester Coates.

While the larger flats in the building are sought-after by downsizers looking to live in them year round, the one-bedroomed properties and studios available are very much seen as the ideal pied a terre.

The Playfair at Donaldson’s is an impressive period building, a Victorian school conversion which is seven minutes’ walk from Haymarket station and seven miles from Edinburgh Airport, another plus point for those journeying from elsewhere.

Each property has secure underground parking, access to a concierge service and the use of the beautifully maintained landscaped grounds in which it is set.

These are very much luxury properties with a price tag to match.

The Quartermile development, which combines new-build apartments with conversion of Victorian hospital buildings on the edge of the Meadows, is also popular with those in the market for a pied a terre, although here buyers are competing with parents purchasing for students.

Yasser Albassam of DJ Alexander says: “Buyers are attracted to the concierge service and extras such as landscaping, window cleaning and a parking place included in the factoring charge for a lowmaintenance home which they can lock up and leave.

“But as well as families of students accessing the bank of mum and dad, they attract young professionals and the investment market because of their central location and popularity with renters.

“One and two-bedroomed apartments in the new buildings sell particularly well.”

A new-build at St Vincent Place in the heart of Edinburgh’s New Town also hopes to tap into the high-end pied a terre market. AMA Homes is putting the finishing touches to seven open-plan studio apartments on the lower ground level of a fully factored building with patio.