During 2023, the prime £1m+ market withstood the challenging headwinds better than the overall market, with the number of sales slightly increasing on the 2022 total to a new record annual high of 506 sales.
While Edinburgh still dominates the prime market, Glasgow and the rest of the West accounted for 26% of all £1m+ sales in Scotland, up by 39 sales on last year.
Most growth in the £1m+ market has been in Glasgow and the West, while sales in Edinburgh have fallen back by nearly 20%. This has been due to a combination of higher interest rates and buyer confidence, particularly in the Super Prime market which we classify as houses over £2m. St Andrews and East Lothian continue to outperform the market with an increasing number of sales over £1m. For 2024, we forecast a gradual improvement in both buyer confidence and the rate of prime sales aligned with a drop in interest rates.
EH3 is now the new number one location for £1m+ sales in Scotland, with 46 sales in 2023.
The £1m+ market in Scotland is concentrated, with 5 Edinburgh postcodes accounting for nearly 40% of all such sales.
From fewer than 30 £1m+ sales in 2017, prime property sales in Glasgow and the rest of the West of Scotland have surged to 134 in 2023.
The KY16 market continues to be a strong performer as a £1m+ destination, with 21 sales in 2023.
EH3 is now the top postcode district for £1m+ sales, with 46 sales recorded in 2023.
This is the first time since 2020 that EH3, which includes the Edinburgh New Town and West End, has been the dominant postcode for £1m+ sales in Scotland.
Edinburgh postcodes dominate the top 5 in the £1m+ sales list, with EH3 followed by EH10, EH9, EH4 and EH12 (number 1 in 2021).
While Edinburgh still accounted for 50% of all £1m+ sales in Scotland in 2023, this was a drop of over 50 sales on 2022 levels.
£1m+ sales in Glasgow and the West hit record levels in 2023. Indeed, there has been more than a four-fold increase in such sales since 2017.
The key £1m+ sales markets in the West include G12 (Glasgow Westend), G77 (Newton Mearns), G46 (Giffnock) and G61 (Bearsden).
St Andrews (KY16) has seen its £1m+ sales continue to rise to the extent that this is now the 6th highest of all Scottish postcode districts, behind only the core Edinburgh postcodes.
In all, there were 21 such sales in the St Andrews area in 2023, up from 17 in 2022.
We would expect the prime market to improve into 2024 with improving economic conditions and further reductions in mortgage rates. General house price inflation is also ’dragging’ more properties into the £1m market, so the number of such sales should increase going forward.
It is probably a temporary effect. This market was particularly buoyant in 2022 and therefore some reduction was expected this year. £1 million plus sales in Edinburgh are still 8% above 2021 levels.
Probably not to any significant extent as the uncertainty will likely only have a modest effect on the overall economy. With a more centrist Labour Party expected to win, a drastic change in the direction of economic policy is not anticipated.
It really depends on market conditions. It 2023, it was more robust as this market tends to be less mortgage dependent. However, the prime market suffered more than the wider housing market in the years after the 2008/09 recession as lending and affordability tightened considerably.
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