A major Scottish estate agency had issued a warning over housing supply following official data showing new-build starts north of the Border are down by nearly a quarter.
DJ Alexander, a major player in the lettings market, flagged Scottish Government data showing there were 16,274 new-build starts in the year to last September, the latest period for which figures are available.
This number, it noted, is down 24.4% from 21,534 in the year to September 2022, and the lowest figure for any year to September period since 2014.
And the agency observed that, in the year to September 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, there were 19,051 starts.
Comparing the year to last September with the preceding 12 months, DJ Alexander said: “The figures show that the private sector fell by 18.8% but the biggest drop occurred in the social housing sector, which saw an annual collapse of 40.5%. Just 3,292 social sector new-build starts happened in the latest year compared with 5,535 the previous year. This is the lowest number of social sector new-build starts since the data started being collected in…1996.”
DJ Alexander chief David Alexander said: “At a time when we have housing emergencies in our two largest cities and also in Argyll and Bute, it is worrying that new-build starts should have declined so much.
“The reasons for the decline in the private sector could be to do with delays in planning, rising costs, anticipated lower demand due to the cost-of-living crisis, and the increase in mortgage costs in the last 18 months.”
He declared that “this is still concerning given that in some parts of the country demand remains extremely strong”.
Mr Alexander said: “Any reduction in future supply will…result in substantially higher prices in the coming years.
“But it is the reduction in starts in the social sector that should set alarm bells ringing. Given that these statistics relate to the time prior to the announcement of reduced funding for affordable housing in the December Scottish Budget, this is a sign that the number of properties being built was already slowing.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel