| Icy weather is being blamed for a blip in house buying which had picked up towards the end of 2009, according to figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Ken Thomson, a partner with Thorntons solicitors in Dundee, said the weather had led to a “very slow start” to the year.
He said, “Listings in January dropped off again from what they had been at the end of last year. New properties coming to the market were well down. People don’t want to bring their properties to the market in that sort of weather. They don’t want their properties being photographed or advertised until things have improved. Also, they asked themselves ‘who would want to look for properties in this weather?’”
However, Mr Thomson said the shoots of recovery were already starting to show.
He said, “Things are starting to pick up. There has been much more activity in the last fortnight in terms of properties we’ve been asked to look at and properties we’ve brought to the market.”
Mr Thomson added that there had been 189 properties listed through the Tayside Solicitors’ Property Centre in January, as opposed to only 100 listings in January 2009.
He said, “There will be a catch-up period. It usually picks up in February.”
Sarah Speirs from RICS Scotland said, “The cold snap in January clearly had an impact on both supply and demand in the housing market with activity virtually coming to a halt amidst the seasonal chaos.
“However, this was just a ‘blip’ and activity and interest is likely to pick up as the market experiences a spring bounce.” |
