SALES of homes worth £1million or more have soared by almost 100% in the north-east as Aberdeen’s boom draws in wealthy house-hunters.
The increase comes as high-value deals significantly fell away across the rest of Scotland. Experts claim that brisk property business in the city and Aberdeenshire is driving recovery in the housing market across the country.
Figures show 87 homes passing the £1million value mark were sold in the Aberdeen area over the five years until September 2013. This is up from the 44 which changed hands between in the five years until September 2008.
While sales in the Aberdeen area have increased by 98%, they have fallen by around 22% in Scotland as a whole over the same period.
Researchers at Savills, which examines market activity based on Registers of Scotland figures, said that two thirds of the £1million homes sold across the north-east were in the “wealth corridor” of the west end, Bieldside, Cults and Milltimber.
Faisal Choudhry, associate director of Scottish residential research at Savills, said the growth in high-value deals in Aberdeen had been “exceptional”, with the city now accounting for almost one fifth (19%) of all such transactions made in Scotland.
Mr Choudhry said: “It is clear the economy of the local area and the success of the energy sector is the main driver of this growth.”
Sales in the city, the Banff and Kincardine areas of Aberdeenshire and Moray were monitored for the research.
Recent high-end purchases included a £1.1million new-build in Bieldside, which was bought by a Malaysian-based purchaser. In Aberdeenshire, Dunecht House, an A-listed mansion near Westhill, sold for almost double the asking price at £1.9million.
Inverenan House, at Strathdon, swapped hands for just under £1.1m.
The Aberdeen area is attracting a growing number of purchasers from overseas.
The vast majority of those buying prime property – valued at £400,000 and above – are from the local area.
But figures show that 9% of buyers in this field came from outside of Scotland.
Mr Choudhry said: “The strength of the energy sector is apparent in the origins of overseas buyers, many of whom come from locations such as Scandinavia, the Middle-East, Australasia and the United States.” Mr Choudhry added that the number of buyers living in the Aberdeen area registering with Savills estate agents to purchase in other parts of the UK, had increased by 76%.
This suggested that buyers from the north-east were helping to stimulate the market across the country, Mr Choudhry said.
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