Big is beautiful at top end of rural market

Plenty of buyers are looking for six, seven or even eight bedrooms in a property, discovers Kirsty Mcluckie

While it may no longer be true in the Capital, if you are lucky enough to have a budget about £1 million, you can expect a lot of house for your money in the Scottish countryside.

For those looking for more than the standard four or five-bedroomed house plus the luxury of amenity land, grand gardens and perhaps some useful outbuildings, June is an ideal month as most larger properties will aim to launch before the lull of the school holidays.

Tom Stewart-moore of Knight Frank says: “This time of year is generally the time that the bulk of property comes on to the market at this level, although we have had something of an unsettled time of it recently.”

He says that homes at this end of the market can take longer to sell: “Smaller properties are selling quickly but it is fickle and at the higher end it is about finding cash buyers – who are either city buyers from Edinburgh or from further afield.”

In terms of value, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the more bedrooms a property has the more valuable it is.

Stewart-moore says: “Size is definitely a consideration. If you get past eight bedrooms, you tend to get a different profile of buyer – perhaps looking for a boutique hotel. But there are plenty of families looking at six, seven or eight bedrooms for a decent-sized family home.

“For buyers at this size and price we are finding viewers have young families and are looking to trade up from their current house.”

Knight Frank has just launched Strathenry House, a Georgian house in an elevated position at Strathenry near Glenrothes, with views to the Forth Estuary.

It has three reception rooms and seven bedrooms. The lower-ground floor has an

artist’s studio, stores, a workshop and an integral garage.

The gardens are a real stand-out feature, with sweeping lawns, a patio, planted borders and a vegetable patch, flanked by mature woodland. There are stables and an area suitable for a paddock.

Dura House in Pitscottie, Cupar, Fife, is a Victorian Baronial house, seven miles from St Andrews.

With 10,000sq ft of accommodation, it is a substantial property, but also a dramatic one with an impressive front façade, a square tower, battlements and columns.

Dura House dates from the 18th century and is packed with original features, such as parquet flooring and marble fireplaces, plus a staircase leading up to a tower.

Outside, there is a range of traditional outbuildings and nine acres of lawn, treelined gravel drive and scenic woodland.

Inside needs a little work. Jamie Macnab for Savills comments: “This is a fabulously impressive house, it could lend itself well to a hospitality or commercial use or indeed make a very fine home – once it has undergone some further refurbishment.”

Fossoway Lodge in Kinross-shire has larger grounds but is a more manageable house. It has a dining room, sitting room, conservatory, breakfast room, studio and study on the ground floor, a first-floor drawing room and seven bedrooms.

A former hunting lodge, the house has been upgraded and is at the centre of 15 acres of land, including a very pretty boating pond.