Morningside is one of the most expensive areas in Edinburgh and demand is still high .............. until now??

Meadowspot is in the catchment of good schools and is a pretty nice place if you like new houses.

So detached 5 bed comes on the market I think 6 weeks ago, offers over £525k, then went to fixed price £595k but now dropped to fixed price £569k.

If you are quick you can see they havent updated the schedule yet:

http://www.espc.com/Buying/253855.html

This from land registry for last 2 years:

2007-05-03 109 Meadowspot, Edinburgh, EH10 5UY £560,000

2006-09-08 139 Meadowspot, Edinburgh, EH10 5UY £525,000

2006-08-04 135 Meadowspot, Edinburgh, EH10 5UY £611,117

(US date format btw)

No idea if they are all exactly the same but looks to me like for the first time the prices are not up on last year at least!

Cheers Rob

PS Just have to persuade the missus that renting for another year is a good idea!

And while I am at it........................Property developer bought this: http://www.espc.com/Buying/254989.html for 485k in September

2007-09-06 47 Comiston Drive, Edinburgh, EH10 5QS £485,000

Now on at offers over £595k where it has been for weeks. So will be interesting to see if they make any money on it!

Have the prices been impacted? Are there any places that have been hit more than usual?

Is there any diifference between the main towns in Scotland (Inverness) with the country villages?

Here's one from me:

81 Comiston Drive, Come straight on at FP £675K! (Interesting that they are not even bothering with OO). Even more interesting to see how they go vs April 2005 and Oct 2003

http://www.espc.co.uk/Buying/269263.html

Anyway previously sold prices:

81 Comiston Drive,

Edinburgh,

Midlothian,

EH10 5QT £525,000

Application No: 05MID10398

Title No: MID49615

Application Type: DW

Deed Codes: 11 20 1 Application Date

21-Apr-2005

and

81 Comiston Drive,

Edinburgh,

Midlothian,

EH10 5QT £466,161

Application No: 03MID25065

Title No: MID49615

Application Type: FR

Deed Codes: 11 20 Application Date

03-Oct-2003

Many of you may have missed this - it was the front page headline on Boxing Day.

The number of first-time home-buyers in Scotland has fallen to the lowest level in more than 30 years despite an improvement in affordability, according to a report.

About 17,000 people bought their first house this year, 4% lower than last year and less than half the peak figure of 39,100 in 2006.

30-year low for first-time buyers

I don't really follow the first time buyer market so don't know if they really are becoming affordable. (I know they're getting cheaper in Edinburgh, but I imagine most still couldn't afford at current prices and deposit requirements).

I don't really see asking prices coming down further up the ladder though - slow drops on Property Bee, but new property still seems to come on at peak prices initially. I suppose the lack of FTBs has to feed through eventually though.

As an aside, there has clearly been a change in sentiment over the last months - I wonder if that will result in lots of properties coming on the market from new year - vendors finally realising that there is no point in "waiting for the market to improve". Hope so.

My current situation is I've been living in my current place for about 7 years. Nice two bed flat in the West end of Glasgow. I do really like my flat, but I feel I've almost outgrown in, I earn a lot more now than I did when I bought it but have resisted buying something bigger due to the ridiculously high prices.

Anyway, I've got about 50% equity in it and my new job means I spend a lot of time up North (West coast) and really like it up there. I've thought about selling up and buying a wee place up there for a similar value to the flat but nothing suitable ever seems to come on the market.

If house prices were to drop 50%, I would owe pretty much what the new value of the flat would be, I'd sell it and buy something up North on the same mortgage payments as now.

However, if a hpc were to be likely soon. I could remortgage to market value, stick the cash somewhere safe and wait for house prices to crash. Then I buy the nice wee place up north with the cash and all is good. I have two properties, a wee hideaway up North and a City crash pad.

I figure if house prices crash I would have more choice up North and being a cash buyer would be a great position to be in.

Am I completely mad for even thinking about this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-38732390?intlink_from_url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/business-38691546&link_location=live-reporting-story

Huge number of student flats so hopefully will start taking the pressure of other residential areas.

I've also noticed a few HMOs and portfolios coming up for sale too

"Today I have handed my resignation in at work. Just under 13 months since attending the initial training. Both myself and Sarah are financially free, no longer in the 'Jobs' and can build on our futures all thanks to your organisation."
Ben M, Essex

See, within a year you can be free and stop working... Act now to make sure you don’t ‘Miss the Boat’.

Share your views here

Looking for a 1 or 2 bed flat for between £120,000 to £175,000 in central area and seem to be quite a few available.

Is there much demand for letting these flats? Work commitments mean I may not always be around so would be looking to let during certain periods, or to permanently let one of the two rooms. What is the going rate for letting of a 2 bed city centre flat?

Thanks

Upperton flat priced at £1 bought for £20,000 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-36333630

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35586056

The Scottish figure will, of course, itself contain considerable regional variations. The Registers of Scotland 2015 calendar year report is due out soon which should give more information.

Before raising taxes, local councils should look seriously at auditing their astonishing debt repayments.

Like that most cherished of British institutions, the NHS, local government in the UK is on borrowed time. The local government patient is lying motionless on its death bed, with George Osborne poised to turn off life support switch.

Nowhere is the crisis in UK local government more apparent than in Scotland, where Moray Council recently hit the headlines for threatening to raise deeply regressive council tax levels by a whopping 18%.

In reality, the gap between what Osborne has cut from Town Hall funding and what can realistically be made up from local taxation looks increasingly stark, so we are told hikes to income taxes are also now required.

Total grant allocation to Scottish local government in 2016-17 will be £10,152.3m. A substantial reduction on the 2015-16 grant of £10,756.7m – more than a 7% reduction in real terms.

More at link.

But look at those numbers... and only 'servicing' debt.

MSPs back second home charge plan

Holyrood's Finance Committee backed a new supplement of 3% of the total price of properties over £40,000.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-35113952

According to the Scottish Fiscal Commission, the official watchdog of the Scottish government's tax and spending plans, the supplement on LBTT will affect between 8,500 and 12,500 transactions each year, and could raise between £19m and £27m.

Also;

http://www.scottishfinancialnews.com/7558/msps-back-tax-on-second-homes/

The committee has therefore called for the introduction of a relief on bulk purchases of six properties or more.

Comments...

www.gov.scot/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/BuyingSelling/help-to-buy

No proper details yet but it looks as if the scheme will be much less generous than the equivalent scheme in E&W, as the Scottish Government is only offering to contribute up to 15% of the purchase price (compared to 20% in E&W and 40% in London) and, crucially, prices of eligible homes, which must be new builds, are capped at £230k in 2016/17 (compared to I think £600k in E&W), with the Scottish cap reducing further to a paltry £200k in 2017/18 and a meagre £175k in 2018/19.

Can't buy much in the way of a family home for £230k in Edinburgh these days, sadly, so the scheme won't help me (unless there's a house price crash of course) but it may have an inflationary effect on prices in more "affordable" areas. The talk in the press release is of helping 5000 households buy in 2016/17 alone. That's 5000 households who can now afford to offer 15% more than they could before.

Last year
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/business/business-news/barratt-homes-build-2100-new-4982012#vXMe53KD7rIouk6m.97

The changes will be introduced after both Stamp Duty and Landfill Tax come under Holyrood control in April 2015, following a substantial transfer of powers from Westminster under the Scotland Act.

Under his “progressive” plans, people looking to buy houses priced more than about £325,000 will pay more tax than they currently would under the Stamp Duty system.

Those buying property under that level would pay less duty than under the current system, while those looking to buy a home worth £180,000 or less would be exempt from paying the new tax altogether – a move to encourage first-time buyers.

As mentioned since I have kids the most important thing for me is finding a home in a good catchment with good schools for both Primary and Secondary and also is safe areas for kids to play and grow up in.

I have a budget of around £250k which I understand will mean I will need to find a home away from the city center which is fine, as I drive. But my wife does not drive (yet) and so transport links need to be good too.

So which areas should I be looking in and which areas should be avoided?

Apparently this is one of the less controversial recommendations from the Land Reform Review Group - full report (200+ pages!) at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0045/00451083.pdf [PDF].

Seem to remember reading that fewer than 500 people own most of Scotland somewhere - perhaps this will confirm it.

I had posted previously about a genuine three-bed flat on the same road which had been on since late June, firstly at OA 340, then OO 330. On 10 October the price suddenly dropped to OO 295. Lo and behold, the flat sold – at least, it has gone from ESPC. With an asking price lower than that of some two-bedroom flats, it looked almost like fair value.

Another two-bedroom flat has come to the market this week. It needs a new kitchen and bathroom and a lick of paint, but is on a very prestigious road, and has come straight on at OA 250. I expect this one, too, will sell quickly.

Meanwhile a whole load of two-bedroom flats in Marchmont with asking prices around 285–315K continue to languish on the market. Evidently their owners are not bothered about whether they sell or not. Similarly there are a few larger flats in Thirlestane Road with just silly prices – 370–400K – which have been sitting around since the late summer. Presumably their owners also don’t care whether they sell or not.

Please post any information about similarly sensibly-priced properties throughout Edinburgh in this thread.

No 600k HTB, but the SCO Government has its own pokers in the HPI fire - The Sco HTB scheme seems to have made any family home new builds just shy of 400k. And as an equity loan on more favourable terms than the RUK one, I almost feel sad to miss out on it.

But what about the referendum??

Is everyone assuming a ' No' and as such house buying is business as usual? Or more likely, no one is giving it much thought and so we will see a dip in the autumn? Or is the economy 'news' and HPI props conquering all?

The article doesn't tell us where all this brown-field land is or whether it would be suitable.

He continues: "Building houses where they are not required would create an oversupply.."

I doubt this, otherwise Mactaggart and Mickel (infamous land-bankers), would not be building them.

He then reveals his true objection: "...and stimulate a reduction in local property values in the long run."

You can see him here:

http://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/ward5

So where are people meant to live?