The Edinburgh property market continues to feature heavily in the press. Here’s all you need to know from January setting things up for the year ahead.

 

Last week the BBC reported that “The property market in and around Edinburgh was given a boost in the last quarter of 2018 by more homes coming on to the market” with house prices rising faster in Edinburgh than anywhere else in Scotland (no surprise!). The ESPC reported that the number of homes listed dropped in 2018 (3.4% down from 2017) but there was an upturn in the final 3 months of the year with 24% more properties being listed in October, November and December than the end of 2017 – this makes it the strongest 4th quarter in 10 years.

 

There were some mixed messages for property owners and investors as just 1 day after the above article, the BBC published another one with the headline “Housing market outlook over the next three months is the worst for 20 years” based on a report from RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors). We took the time to dig a bit deeper and this second article takes in a UK-wide view with regions in England and Wales predicted to be worse affected by the ongoing uncertainty around Brexit. Evidence from RICS members elsewhere in the UK paint a fairly bleak picture of how the market has reacted over the last 3 months. From the data produced so far, Edinburgh continues to outperform the majority of the country.

 

On Monday this week (21st Jan 2019) the Scotsman jumped in on the act to highlight the popularity of 1 bedroom City Centre apartments. These properties were reported to go under offer within 2 weeks of going on the market and according to the Scotsman the average selling price for a home in Edinburgh increased by almost 6% during 2018 to £262,897 (from £247,215 in 2017). Areas including; Leith Walk, Easter Road, Pilrig, Bonnington, Abbeyhill and Meadowbank were highlighted as those most popular. At Umega Lettings we’ve focused our investors on these areas for some time now, encouraging buy to let investors to consider this property size. We’ve focused our own searches when investing for our own Staff Property Fund in this high-performing part of the market.

 

In terms of rents, an article from Edinburgh Live highlights that Edinburgh has the fastest growing rents in the UK with the average rent increasing by a 4.63% in 2018 which paints a similar story to the trend reported by Citylets in their most recent Quarterly report.

 

To wrap up the press reports on the Edinburgh Property Market from January, Scotland’s capital city is proving to be a very good place to invest in property. Rent levels continue to rise which is not good news if you are a tenant but this is predicted to continue as the longer-term outlook predicts a growing deficit in the number of quality rental homes in the City compared to the increasing professional tenant population. Tenancies are lasting longer than ever before (Umega’s average tenancy length is around 2.5 years) which is further reducing available stock for prospective tenants as there are less”re-lets” available for let than was the case 5 years ago.

If you are a landlord looking to grow your Edinburgh rental portfolio then visit our investor  page where we can help get you moving.