Property market has the traditional Spring in its step as the season changes - David Alexander

Spring is the time when the property market traditionally bursts into life. The gloom of Winter has nearly ended, the weather improves, and people’s thoughts turn to moving. Two or three months ago few would have predicted that this would occur this year, but the latest data indicates it seems to be the case.

Our latest analysis shows that the year-on-year number of properties advertised for sale has increased by 85 per cent in parts of Scotland. There is a lot of regional variation in these figures, but generally Scotland’s cities have a greater number of properties for sale this year than last with Aberdeen the only exception.

Perth has seen the volume of properties increase by 85 per cent between April 2022 with April 2023; numbers are up 65 per cent in Inverness; 55 per cent higher in Dundee; 54 per cent greater in Edinburgh; 51 per cent up in Glasgow; and 8 per cent down in Aberdeen.

Aberdeen has an atypical market to the rest of Scotland having a high volume of properties which have been for sale for some time due to the local economy being heavily impacted by the continued political uncertainty over the future of the oil and gas sector. It is a more long term issue which is taking some time to work through.

David Alexander is CEO of DJ Alexander Scotland Ltd

However, even in the shorter term all of Scotland’s major cities saw the volume of advertised properties increase over the last month between March and April of this year.

So, something is happening in the market and there are likely to be multiple reasons for this uptick in the volume of sales, but it is interesting that it is largely against the expected trend and pointing towards a more optimistic mood in the sector which few would have predicted even a few months ago.

The greatest increase in the number of properties for sale was among detached and semi-detached homes. In Glasgow detached and semi-detached home volumes were 210 per cent and 73 per cent higher respectively; in Edinburgh they were up 197 per cent and 122 per cent; and 111 per cent and 96 per cent greater in Dundee. There are currently many more homes in the most expensive bracket for sale which could mean a bargain for house buyers if there is too much stock for sale at a given time or could simply be a continuation of the covid trend for properties with outside space.

This part of the market has seen a very slight fall in price but not what would have been expected given the extraordinary increases that have occurred in these properties since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

The number of properties for advertised sale has increased by 85 per cent year-on-year in parts of Scotland​​​​​​​

It seems, therefore, that the traditional Spring boost to sales is occurring regardless of interest rate rises and cost-of-living issues and it appears that sellers and buyers are still flocking to the market in remarkable numbers.

Whilst there has obviously been a reduction in average prices this was following a period of record rises and would be expected regardless of the direction of travel for mortgage rates.

I do believe that we will continue to see average prices fall overall but the liveliness of the detached and semi-detached market is a further indicator that there remains good money for quality homes and areas.

I now think it unlikely that the Bank of England will continue to raise interest rates given the forecast for inflation to fall to between two and three per cent by the end of the year so there is every prospect of a recovering economy. With declining inflation, an easing of utility costs, and continued good news on employment levels I am hopeful that the housing market may get an unexpected boost as we go through the year. Average prices will continue to soften but not dramatically and I think the property market will experience an easier year than had been forecast. The panic of last Autumn has been replaced by a calmer, more reasoned approach to buying and selling and long may this continue.

David Alexander is CEO of DJ Alexander Scotland Ltd