City home sales show a rise

THERE was fresh hope of green shoots in Edinburgh's property market today as estate agents reported sales on the rise.

The Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre (ESPC) said the number of properties being sold across the city had doubled in the space of four months, rising from just over 200 in February to around 400 in June.

Meanwhile, Edinburgh-based property solicitor, Warners, recorded its best sales figures for more than a year after selling 72 homes across the Capital in the last five weeks, which it put down to new home buyers entering the market.

Warners' Scott Brown said the figures showed that buyers were taking advantage of the favourable buying conditions.

Mr Brown said: "The figures are the best we've had for over a year, so it's a very promising sign that things are taking a turn for the better in the property market.

"At the start of the year, we were only selling around six properties a week, so this is a significant increase that has been building up over the past few months."

However, he added: "Of course, we're not out of the recession and these figures are still down on the peak sales we had two years ago. There is still a long way to go before we see any real signs of a recovery in the market."

Independent property company, Rettie & Co, also said it had experienced "a notable increase" in the number of residential property sales across Scotland, within the family-priced sector of 250,000 to 750,000, in the first six months of 2009.

The company added that this had led to increased activity for properties priced at more than 1 million.

Business analyst for ESPC, David Marshall, said a number of factors had contributed to the "modest upturn" in Edinburgh's property market over the last few months. "There has been a slight relaxing in lending criteria and a marginal increase in the availability of mortgages which require slightly lower deposits," he said.

"The number of property sales has been steadily increasing since February this year, but these figures are still lower than in previous years."

Average house prices across the city have been slowly creeping upwards since the start of the year. In January, the average house price stood at 198,267, compared with 214,374 in June.

Mr Marshall added: "July looks like it will be more of the same with the average house price being fairly consistent and the number of sales edging up slightly.

"The average house price is still 10-15 per cent lower than it was at the peak of the market."

What can be done to help Edinburgh's property market?

Ronald Aitken, 55, carer, Pirniefield Bank: "I think banks and building societies should increase their lending to people."

Paula Calder, 52, council worker, Drummond Street: "The basic thing is to give people secure and well paid jobs."

Diana Atkinson, 77, retired, Greenlaw Rigg: "The banks should increase their lending but only to people who can afford to pay it back."