Good times poised to return for Scots
Now that the uncertainty has gone, momentum is expected to gather, writes Peta Tomlinson
There's nothing like uncertainty to set markets wobbling, and Britain's property sector is no exception.
Last month, it was the referendum in Scotland. Voting "yes" to independence would "reverse the hard-won gains of the recent housing recovery", wiping £31,000 (HK$388,693) off the average house price in Scotland, warned one source, the house price website Zoopla.
Buyers were reluctant to enter the market ahead of the referendum, concedes Ran Morgan, Knight Frank's head of Scotland residential, adding that this was "especially true for buyers from outside of Scotland". So prices remained static across all regions over the course of the second quarter.
The exception, suggests Oliver Knight, of Knight Frank residential research, was the prime market. "In fact, up until the last couple of weeks, the referendum had surprisingly little impact on the prime market. We experienced a lot of activity among buyers with, if anything, a lack of stock as opposed to a lack of demand."
Since a decisive "no" vote transpired, many analysts now predict a new wave of activity to push forward the gains of the past year. The turning point in Scotland reached a turning point in mid-2013, Knight says, when, "following three years of falling or static prices, we finally started to see growth as confidence in the market returned and buyers and vendors became more positive about the potential for future growth".
In the first quarter this year, house prices in Scotland grew by 7.6 per cent - the fastest rate in six years, according to the Nationwide house price survey, although still below the British average of 9.2 per cent growth.