Responding to the latest Nationwide report, which shows UK house prices have recovered to their levels from 12 months ago, Warners estate agency partner Scott Brown said:
“We have certainly seen prices stabilise and even increase very slightly over the past few months. Like the rest of the UK, we are now at the point where house prices in Edinburgh have recovered to the levels that we saw a year ago.
“The Nationwide report has suggested that the volume of house sales across the UK is currently down on the level from 2008. However, this does not seem to be the case in Edinburgh as, in recent weeks, we seen a marked increase in the number of property sales across the region.
“Over the past 10 weeks we have sold 133 properties, compared to just 100 over the same period in 2008 – so it’s clear that Edinburgh is bucking the trend as far as sales volumes are concerned.
“Of course, house prices and the number of sales are still well down on where they were at the peak of the market in 2007, so we still have a long way to go before we see a full recovery. However, we have certainly moved forward considerably from where we were 12 months ago when I look at the market in Edinburgh and Lothians.”