Scotland’s most expensive street, entry fee £1.7million

DICK Place in the Grange area of Edinburgh has been named Scotland’s most expensive street for the second year in a row.

The leafy suburban street of substantial Georgian and Victorian villas has an average house price of £1,686,000, according to sales figures from the Registers of Scotland.

Traditional family homes in Edinburgh continue to dominate the luxury property market – with ten out of 20 of the streets with the highest prices to be found in the capital.

However, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Ayr also have their own millionaire postcodes.

Property experts say Edinburgh has traditionally accounted for half of the most expensive streets in Scotland.

A fixed supply of substantial family homes combined with the capital’s role as an administrative and financial centre have kept prices high, even as property values fall elsewhere.

Being walking distance from some of Scotland’s top private schools is another reason house prices in the south of Edinburgh continue to buck the trend.

Nitesh Patel, economist at the Bank of Scotland, said: “Scotland’s most expensive streets are concentrated around the cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. Half of Scotland’s most desirable addresses are in the capital, which has a mixture of classical architecture in the Old Town, and Georgian buildings of the New Town, alongside modern developments in central locations.”

The Bank of Scotland based its data on the average price of sales over the past five years, but only counted streets that had seen more than seven sales.

According to the registers, Rubislaw Den South, in the West End of Aberdeen, falls into the second most expensive postcode in Scotland. Homes in this street have sold for an average £1,455,000 over the past five years. Altries Wood, in Mary- culter, Aberdeen, also makes it into the top 20 – with average house prices reaching £866,000.

Glasgow’s most expensive street is Park Drive in the popular commuter village of Thorntonhall, with prices reaching £923,000.

However, property analysts say even the top end of the market is feeling the pinch. Outside Edinburgh, sales of more than £1 million are now rare.

Research by estate agents Rettie and Co showed prices had increased by between 1.4 and 1.8 per cent in the south of Edinburgh – while elsewhere they had fallen by an average of 6 per cent.

Outside Scotland’s three major cities, the most expensive homes are on Mar Hall Avenue in Bishopton in Renfrewshire, (£929,000) and Belleisle Drive in Ayr (£823,000).

Despite the apparent buoyancy of the figures, estate agents reported a marked downturn in the top end of the property market over the last five years.

Savills head of residential research, Faisal Chowdhry, said: “In 2007 there were more than 300 sales in Scotland of property which cost more than a million, in 2011 this was down to 134 and in 2012 so far, the figures are down to around a hundred.”

He said the increase in stamp duty, the number of unsold homes and the financial downturn have all taken their toll.

Mr Chowdhry added: “One thing we have noticed is that the number of Scottish buyers in the prime property market is going down. Prime property is becoming increasingly reliant on non-Scottish and overseas buyers.”