Scottish housing market at a crossroads - warning

The Scottish housing market is at a serious crossroads, a major estate agency brand in the country has warned.

Lomond Group-owned agent DJ Alexander has warned serious decisions must be made in the coming year to ensure there is sufficient housing available to provide homes for Scots.

A statement from the brand highlights that in 1993 37.5% of Scots lived in social housing, 7% rented privately and 55.5% were owner occupied.

By 2020, the most recently available data, 23% were living in social housing, 14.9% were in the private rented sector, and 58.2% were owner occupiers.

In terms of actual numbers there were 822,000 social houses in 1993 and there were 608,000 in 2020 which is a drop of 214,000. 

This is a reduction of 7,642 homes each year for the last 28 years. 

Since the SNP came to power in 2007 there has been an increase of just 1,000 homes in the social sector, the agency said.

Its chief executive David Alexander, added: “We need a serious debate on every part of the housing sector in Scotland. 

“The answer to the growing housing needs of our population lies in a blended solution which involves the owner-occupier market, the private rented and social housing sectors combining their efforts to create sufficient homes for people to live in.

“These figures highlight the failure of successive governments on both sides of the border to build sufficient social housing to meet demand and the consequent growth of the private rented sector to fill this gap over the past three decades.”

He accused the Scottish Government, which last month raised the Additional Dwelling Supplement part of the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax on additional properties from 4% to 6%, of adopting a housing policy that seeks to single out the private rented sector as being the root cause of housing shortages in Scotland. 

Alexander added: “What we need is a coherent long-term plan to create a housing policy that reflects the needs and demands of a diverse and changing population. 

“Without the private rented sector there will be no homes for foreign workers, for temporary residents, for those studying or on placement. 

“With a growing social housing waiting list the demand is simply becoming impossible to meet and I believe that if we don’t have a sensible and workable approach in the next year or so then there is a very real risk of a rise in homelessness in Scotland. I believe that opening up communication channels between the various interested parties would be more valuable in ensuring we have a suitable supply of homes in the future. Simply demonising one sector will resolve nothing and is potentially very damaging for the future supply of homes for tenants.”