Is the sun shining on the Scottish housing market?
Midsummer may be sunny but we have also had a few recent gloomy headlines clouding Scotland’s housing market. One recent claim suggested that properties in Edinburgh are taking nearly 500 days to sell, a jaw-dropping figure that would indicate a near market collapse if true.
But it isn’t.
According to Rightmove, the UK’s most authoritative source for this type of data, the actual average selling time in Edinburgh over the past year is 124 days (around 4 months), which is very much ‘business as usual’. It aligns with what agents are seeing on the ground – a steady but unspectacular market that is ticking along. It also ties in with our market forecasts at the start of 2025 (published in this paper in February).
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At the top end of the market, where properties can command well into seven figures, things move more slowly. But that is not a sign of weakness; it is the reality of a smaller, very discerning buyer pool. Sellers in this tier tend to be strategic in their thinking and are aware marketing can take longer but also know that there are quality outcomes when the right buyer is found.
This stable market pattern is also shown in the number of listings in the main Scottish cities since the start of 2025. Edinburgh is down 3% (on what had been a strong first-half of 2024), with Glasgow up 3% (on what was also a strong H1 2024). That’s a subtle shift and maybe reflects the greater affordability in the Glasgow market just now. However, these are very minor changes.
Despite two small drops in interest rates in 2025, don’t expect a flood of cheap borrowing. As expected, there was no further interest rate cut on Thursday. The market expects one further minor cut this year, which has already been priced into mortgage rates by the banks. There will not be a 2021-style boom happening anytime soon.
Selling a property is not just about putting an advert online and waiting. It is about timing, presentation, strategy and stamina. Spring is the prime time but blink and it’s already autumn and then the property market crawls into a winter hibernation.
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If you went on in the spring, the stats show to expect (on average) a summer sale. Get on in the summer and you can still expect an autumn sale. Leave much longer than that and you are looking at 2026.
The Scottish housing market is not falling apart (despite what some of the noise says). It is adjusting, rationalising and subtly reshuffling. As shown by the doom-mongers who wrongly predicted house price crashes during the pandemic, it is easy to use poor quality statistics to drum up drama. But the smart players in the market are focused, realistic and stay the course.
Max Mills, Director of Residential Sales, Rettie
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