THE city’s booming housing market has prompted a dramatic fall in the number of homes being put up for sale in the Capital, experts warned today.
The number of houses on Edinburgh’s property market dropped by more than 20 per cent during April compared with the same time last year.
Home owners are fighting shy of putting their property on the market because they fear they will be left home
less if they sell before finding somewhere suitable to move to, according to the Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre.
The growing shortage of homes for sale helped push the average price of houses sold in the Capital during April up to £118,000, figures released by the ESPC today also showed. That is a rise of 16 per cent compared with 12 months previously.
The average number of houses on the market on each day during April was 2223, compared with last year which saw 2840 homes up for sale on average over the same period - a drop of 22 per cent.
Fewer houses on the market have also forced a 4.3 per cent drop in the number of sales from April last year, which saw 1550 homes sold compared with 1484 this year.
Property experts are now urging home owners to join the housing market, but are advising people to negotiate longer entry dates.
An example of a top-of-the-range property currently on the market is an early Victorian detached family villa set in a quarter of an acre of grounds at 39 Corstorphine Road.
With an asking price of over £530,000 the four-bedroom house has a south facing garden with a water feature and access to the Water of Leith.
Along with the rising price of property in Edinburgh has come an increase in the amount people are prepared to bid over the asking price.
Simon Fairclough, ESPC marketing director, said the figures were a reflection of the state of the market.
"These figures show that there are a lot of people looking for properties to buy but a lack of home owners going onto the market.
"There has been a reluctance in the market because properties are selling so quickly, which has made the stocks go down, giving less choice for people.
"This has discouraged people to put their houses on the market because they are afraid there is nothing for them to buy.
"These figures are also an indicator of what is to come with a general shortage of properties but a high demand of house buyers.
"We advise that people join the market but seek a longer entry date."
Mr Fairclough added that property prices would have to slow down eventually. "These statistics show that quite a few home owners are not moving house, it is the first-time buyers which are most affected by this trend because they aren’t benefiting from selling a house during this peak time.
"I am pleased to see property prices continuing to rise, but I would expect they will come down."
GRAEME McCallum, DTZ Residential, said some people were choosing to build extensions on to their homes rather than to face the upheaval of a move.
"There are fewer homes available this year because they are taken so quickly that the collective number is reduced and this is giving less choice. There are also less coming on the market because people can no longer afford to buy the houses they want."
Mr McCallum also said that rises in house prices were far outstripping inflation and wage increases. "Because the prices have risen so steeply, houses are now quite often falling into the over £250,000 price bracket, which means buyers face a dramatic jump in stamp duty tax on the house, from one per cent to three per cent.
"I don’t believe that these soaring prices are a good thing, they have become exaggerated over the years and are bypassing the rate of wage increases."
He added the only people benefiting from the soaring house prices in Edinburgh were home owners selling up and moving to cheaper parts of the country.
Another indication of the fast-moving property market is the fact that the Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre’s site (www.espc.co.uk) is the third most popular estate agents’ website across the UK.
INDEPENDENT internet competitive intelligence agency, Hitwise, compiled the data and found the city’s solicitor organisations website has outstripped many major estate agencies.
The internet is becoming one of the most popular ways to find a property to buy, meaning the days of driving around streets looking for "For Sale" signs are well and truly over for many people.
Hector Grant, ESPC operations director, said: "In April alone, our website recorded almost seven million page views from more that 70,000 unique visitors.
"Over one million property schedules were downloaded to users’ screens, and the average visitor time was an amazing 22 minutes and 54 seconds - an extremely long time by anyone’s standards."
Ron Smith, ESPC chief executive, said: "The web now represents our most powerful channel to market.
"Independent confirmation that we now control the country’s third busiest property website is the clearest possible vindication of our decision to invest £500,000 in developing our IT systems; investment which is yielding the desired dividends and more."
