Scottish house prices may have risen 10.3 per cent since May 2014 – twice that of England & Wales - but values have slumped 2.1 per cent in the past month and only one £1m-plus home has been sold in the last 10 weeks according to LSL.
“Two months into Scotland’s new transaction tax regime, and the impact of the overhaul is still reverberating around the property market” admits LSL Scottish spokeswoman Christine Campbell.
“The latest monthly dip [is] testament to further shock-waves of the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, as the market continues to absorb the change. May’s monthly fall of 2.1 per cent (equal to £4,000) is the largest backwards step we’ve experienced for nearly six years” she says.
“There’s been only one million-pound home sold in Scotland in the past two months, which is reining back current measures of growth.”
She says lower official transactions figures in May are another symptom of the LBTT, with many sales rushed through beforehand earlier in the year, and disrupting the usual seasonal pattern.
“There was a 15 per cent spike in home sales in the immediate run-up to the introduction of the new tax. In contrast, there were just 7,386 sales in May 2015, 10 per cent lower than April levels as activity returns to normal” says Campbell.
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