News and Press releases

Varied views of the capital

16/05/2010

According to the Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre, average house prices in Edinburgh rose by 11.6 per cent in the past year. That takes the average price of a house in the capital up to £224,931. Not only that, but there were 37pc more houses sold in the year compared with the previous 12 months.
There was further good news – for vendors at least – in respect of the time that it took to sell a home. The average wait for a sale was 15 weeks, six weeks fewer than a year ago and the average premium on upset prices had risen 10pc, up from 4.9pc in April 2009.
All encouraging stuff – but why are the figures so different from the last results from the Registers of Scotland? According to the RoS Index, average prices in the capital are up by 13.8pc compared with a year ago, while the number of sales is up by just 19.7pc.
The answer lies in the method by which these figures are produced. RoS collects data from all sales in Scotland – including those transactions made privately or for cash and purchase that do not require a mortgage. Quite a lot of these sales are unlike the usual process by which most of us buy a home.
However, the ESPC collects its data solely from the solicitors who are its members. They sell the vast majority of houses that change hands in Edinburgh – but not all. They generally sell fewer of the most expensive properties. They also do not tend to be all that active in selling properties that could be more broadly seen as developments.
How your property, or a property in which you might be interested, is affected by these changes depends on how closely it corresponds to the data on which the indices are based.
Incidentally, last week saw the launch of another property index for the capital, this time monitoring the level of rent that you are likely to pay to live there and in Glasgow.
Letting agents at DJ Alexander have started tabulating the data they collect to try to give a picture of how the cost of letting is changing.
As it is a new venture, for the moment, the index can say no more than what people are paying right now. The average cost of letting a one or two-bed flat in Edinburgh is, respectively, £559 and £735 per calendar month. In Glasgow similar properties would cost you £509 or £783.
Rents are generally more volatile than sale prices, so it will be fascinating to see how this index develops.

THE SUNDAY TIMES, 16 May 2010

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