Surveyors have claimed that the Scottish housing market managed to buck the UK trend in October, following a surprising pick-up in inquiries from new buyers.
In addition, the most recent Ricks UK Residential Market Survey has also indicated that there is an expectation that prices will rise, despite large concerns remaining in regards to a lack of stock and land tax in general.
Surveyors have also noticed – and subsequently reported – that the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT), that has been charged in Scotland, seems to be proving ‘prohibitively high’.
As well as this, there are also growing concerns that this is having an adverse effect on sales – more so at the higher end of the market spectrum.
This has prompted the Royal Institution of Charted Surveyors (RICS) to call on the Scottish government in order to address this problem, which they feel can be done by reviewing the LBTT framework.
RICS want a structure set in stone which would inject what they’re calling “some much-needed fluidity into the market.”
All across the UK, interest from buyers has maintained its decline all through October, with 20% more respondents seeing a fall in new-buyer inquiries over the entire month.
Falling in line with this, agreed sales were also reported to drop again, with 20% more respondents highlighting a decline in transactions over October on a national level.
Scotland, Wales and the North East of England were the only areas to see any pick-up for agreed sales, while sales trends were either flat or negative across the rest of the UK.
