With no lack of statistical data available to support the theories, why is misleading?
all so
What’s happening in the Housing Market? it
Right now the Press would have us believe that Average Scottish house prices have happily
returned to their 2007 pre-crisis
peak. That might well be true if you live in West Dunbartonshire or East Lothian but what about the rest of us? The problem is that headline statistics
tend to report on
National Averages and although it is true that sales volumes in Scotland had been rising overall and that average house prices climbed year-on-year by 13.3% to £173,830 – the highest since Registers of Scotland (RoS) records began in 2003, what we’ve seen here in Dunblane doesn’t necessarily seem to reflect this trend. Here, the price of detached properties may even have fallen slightly in the last quarter, according to data publicly available on Zoopla for FK15? My own home (a 5 bed Cala) reportedly worth £675,000, I know, would be pushed to achieve £550,000. It’s no surprise then that here in Dunblane, as in many other similar locales, some of us may be left feeling that someone’s telling ‘porkies’.
So why the conflicting messages? Although a number of factors will contribute, some of the blame must surely rest with the introduction of the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT). On the first of April this year, LBTT, a progressive banded property purchase tax, replaced UK Stamp Duty for Scottish home buyers. Introduced by the Scottish
50
Government under their new devolved powers the LBTT was designed to smooth out the distortion in house prices associated with the bunching of sales around stamp duty thresholds and to more fairly weight the tax burden at the ‘top end’ of the market.
Analysis of sales data early in the year would suggest that a substantial increase in the sale of high value properties before the end of March, to avoid the reduced demand for those properties that was anticipated subsequently, has substantially skewed the average house price data, creating a misleading message in the market. Areas with a high proportion of such properties i.e. Dunblane with comparable average house prices for the same period at around £267,000, may have suffered more acutely as a result. And, although the impact of the LBTT will eventually level off as buyers adjust to the new increased cost of upgrading it does seem that the effects remain fairly significant to our local property market where we continue to see a lower volume of high value properties being brought to market and typically a lengthening of the expected time to sell for those that do.
On a brighter note there does appear to be increasing buoyancy at the lower and middle market and where these sellers begin to benefit this should eventually reinvigorate demand further up. Only time will tell.
Kindly provided by Double Aspect Property Consulting Ltd To advertise in thewire t. 07720 429 613 e.
the.wire@btinternet.com
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