Scottish housing market expectations improve as buyer interest increases

New buyer enquiries in Scotland picked up (Andrew Matthews/PA Wire)

EXPECTATIONS for the Scottish housing market are improving as more potential buyers are becoming active, a new survey suggests.

New buyer enquiries in Scotland picked up, the latest Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) residential market survey for December found.

This was in contrast to the overall UK housing market which continued to display a lack of momentum last month, with buyer interest edging lower.

The headline price balance for Scotland remained firmly positive at 28% in the latest survey, meaning that 28% more surveyors said that prices rose in the past three months than those who said they fell.

However the supply of properties coming to the market remains a key concern for Scottish surveyors.

New vendor instructions to sell remained in negative territory for the ninth consecutive month.

Gail Hunter, RICS director in Scotland, said: “Whilst there are regional variations in the market, the overall picture presented by the latest survey is one of rising expectations as buyer interest increases.

“However, respondents continue to cite a lack of stock as a key market concern, and indeed the December survey points to a gap between supply and demand as new buyer enquiries rise whilst instructions to sell are broadly flat.

“Anecdotally, its seems that the changes to Land and Buildings Transaction Tax continues to have a negative impact on instructions to sell in the middle-to-prime brackets of the market, and this is having a detrimental trickle-down effect in other house price brackets.

“Unless supply increases, this could act to temper expectations in the months ahead.”

The survey found that newly agreed sales rose in December, whilst there were also increases in new buyer enquiries.

Instructions to sell were broadly flat at minus 2%.

The three-month price expectations balance at 33% picked up from 25% in November.

Meanwhile, three-month sales expectations data at 34% was also higher than the previous month when it was 30%.