Author: Neil Rapson

It has felt like the market has been in hibernation over the winter for longer than is usual and it has taken till the arrival of Spring and some welcome sunshine, to see some signs of renewed activity.

A combination of our national and international politicians (don’t you just love them) doing little to instil any real economic confidence/stability, on top of precious little stock openly on the market and cautious investor appetite has all led to a fairly muted start to the year.

It feels like most investment agents will be singing a little louder than this time last year but not yet belting it out from the roof tops! The market is better for sure, volumes are up, interest rates are lower, confidence is building but caution remains.
Despite the October budget doing little for wider business confidence, investor appetite for real estate remains reasonably robust. That said, it is a polarised picture with prime assets seeing a deepening buyer pool and if something looks like “real value” then there is a good level of interest. In between remains fickle.

Maybe so but it has certainly been an eventful summer! Since our last review – we have had a new UK Government, (two) attempts to shoot former President Donald Trump, further unrest in the Middle East and Ukraine advances into parts of Russia, more macro uncertainty. Yet despite all of this (and say it quietly), there are signs that we are finding some stability at the prime end of the commercial property market in Scotland.