Capital homes for the biggest budgets

The top end of the market has bounced back and there is plenty to tempt wealthy buyers, says Kirsty Mcluckie

The upper end of the property market in Scotland has had a volatile few years. The introduction of Land and Buildings Transaction Tax by the Scottish Government in 2015, meant Scottish property above the million pound mark was considerably more expensive to buy compared to similarly priced properties in England.

At a sale price of £1m, an added £45,000 in tax is now due.

A slow down of sales occured as a result, but recent evidence suggests that in Edinburgh at least, the top of the market has bounced back, with confidence returning and homes priced at a million pounds and above changing hands at an impressive rate.

Rightmove figures published earlier this year found that million pound homes sell faster in Edinburgh than anywhere else in the UK, outside of Cambridge.

Properties in the capital worth over £1m take an average of just 53 days to be snapped up by a buyer – which is 23 days faster than last year and almost twice as fast as the national average of 99 days.

The city may be the most expensive in Scotland, but for those with a multimillion pound budget, Edinburgh is still seen by wealthy buyers as offering value for money compared with other UK locations, particularly in the South East.

The quality and range of homes available, with good amenities on the doorstep and in popular locations are a big draw.

A very typical high-end Edinburgh period home is 23 Walker Street.

The Georgian townhouse has both a garden and off-street parking and has been beautifully restored by the current owner.

It is one of the few whole townhouses in the West End, after many were converted to offices or split into apartments in the 1980s and 90s, and it is very rare to find one that is in such good condition.

The lower ground floor of the house has been set up to either be incorporated in to the main house, or to be used as a selfcontained flat with its own entrance from the street.

For indoor space and extensive grounds close to the city centre, Innerwick House in Murrayfield is at the top end of high value properties in the capital.

Murrayfield is a mile from the centre and is convenient for the financial district and access to the airport. It is particularly popular with families because of the range of private schools in easy reach.

Innerwick is one of Edinburgh’s finest houses, in private, beautifully screened and walled grounds.

It is a stone-built Georgian house, sympathetically extended in Edwardian times to now measure over 8,000sq ft.

The house was comprehensively refurbished and reconfigured in the late 1990s to create five double bedrooms and five bathrooms alongside elegant drawing and dining rooms and the open-plan dining kitchen and family living room.

The Old Coach House in the grounds has three bedrooms, its own parking and garden.

Braeknowe, on Barnton Avenue West, is an elegant detached house dating from the 1940s.

It is set in a secluded wooded plot in one of Barnton’s best and most sought after residential addresses and has the ultimate 21st century luxury, a swimming pool complex.