Highlighting the changes in city on the move

Richard Loudon, enthusiastically innovative partner at traditional Edinburgh firm Simpson & Marwick, discusses with Rory Ford how the Capital’s housing market has evolved since the property veteran started out in the business 40 years ago

When Richard Loudon first joined Simpson & Marwick in 1979, one of his first tasks was catering for the firm’s office Christmas party.

For such a grand blow-out he was afforded a budget of just £4 per head for food and wine. That same year, the senior partner recalls, the £100,000-barrier was broken by the sale of a townhouse in Edinburgh’s New Town.

It’s fair to say that quite a bit has changed since then. In the last year of the ’70s, Loudon was a young law graduate who had joined the small, but well-kent legal firm, which was then made up of four partners and right next door to Robert Louis Stephenson’s former home in Heriot Row.

Primarily, Simpson & Marwick was a litigation firm. “There was one partner who did a bit of conveyancing work but we didn’t sell any properties,” explains Loudon, now the company’s Residential Property Purchase and Sales Partner, leaning forward over a meeting room table in the firm’s modern offices in Albany Street.

“I did a one-year traineeship as a litigation lawyer, then entered conveyancing, so I thought, ‘Well, we better sell some properties’, and since then we’ve built it up.”

Loudon helped expand the business until it swelled to “45-50 partners” with offices in Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Newcastle and Leeds. The litigation the firm dealt with was “primarily insurancebased” and so, to help simplify crossborder business in those matters, they became part of global law firm Clyde & Co four years ago.

Simpson & Marwick still exists, clearly, but now as the trading name of the residential property division of Clyde & Co, which occupies the floors above Louden’s.

“You’ll see that the likes of Dundas & Wilson have disappeared after being absorbed by larger law firms and crossborder mergers. So effectively, one of the main things I’ve been able to do is to keep the name of a long-standing traditional Edinburgh firm alive,” he says proudly. “Keeping that name and tradition alive has been a real bonus.”

If Loudon is a traditionalist, it’s probably confined to his firm’s heritage and reputation. In all other aspects, he has a sense of innovation that has helped make him “one of the top residential property lawyers in

Scotland”, according to a profile of him in Business Quarterly a few years back.

At the tail end of the 1980s, as Edinburgh’s property market started to really get moving, some firms began to discount conveyancing fees in a bid to increase business, leading to questions being raised about the future feasibility of the profession.

Rather than reduce fees, Loudon argued his case for better service and, as a consequence, Simpson & Marwick was one of the first firms to introduce “For Sale” signs – then, a real novelty in Edinburgh – to their properties.

That sense of innovation continues with Loudon. If he wants to show you something – as he often does – he’ll reach for an ipad before a piece of printed literature.

His firm’s website is unusual in that it offers a client login so that they can keep an eye on the interest their property is generating in realtime. “Not many firms offer this but some clients absolutely love it,” enthuses Loudon. “Basically, when the property is on the market, they can log in at any time and see how many people have viewed the property on different portals, such as ESPC and Rightmove. How many have clicked through and downloaded the sales particulars or the home report. Clients seem to like the stats best, but if we get any follow-ups from enquiries people can see that too.

“Some other people offer a version, but not in such a sophisticated way. We’re very keen on technology and think this is the most sophisticated version available.”

With more than 40 years’ experience in property law and the Edinburgh scene, Loudon has a firm grasp of the changing dynamics of the market. It used to be that the winter months were traditionally “dead”, and people were advised not to bother putting their house on the market during the period. Now, that is simply not the case, as evidenced by the marketing of a central New Town flat put up for sale by Simpson & Marwick in early January and, after a flurry of interest – your author admits to taking a look – the property is now under offer.

“That’s a very good example of the advantages of going to the market early,” explains Loudon. “If there’s nothing else good on the market, then the effect is like bees round a honeypot.

“Before the internet, people would wait until there were lots of properties on the market before they went looking. The market started to pick up around the end of March and would continue through spring and summer until everyone went away on holiday in July and August. Now you can sell your property almost any day of the year.”

Does Loudon not think that Brexit might have a deleterious effect on the Edinburgh property market? “We’ve certainly seen an uplift in activity since the general election,” he says. “No-one is talking to us about Brexit any longer. People know what is happening and, certainly compared to the last Independence Referendum, Brexit hasn’t been as big a deal – in Edinburgh anyway.”

Loudon is well placed to measure market forces, as he’s in contact with major companies’ surveyors who prepare home reports for properties entering the market.

“The first test is how many home reports are being instructed and the feedback from the surveyors is that there has been a noticeable uplift in January, so we think there’s going to be a larger supply and more activity in the market than there has been in the last couple of years.

“Prices remain robust and are – if anything – climbing. But that’s down to lack of supply and low interest rates, long-term fixed-rate and interest-only mortgages.

“Money is incredibly cheap just now and, if you’ve got a deposit, it simply doesn’t make economic sense to carry on renting.”

We think there’s going to be and more activity in the market than there has been in the last couple of years