The ten most expensive streets to buy a home in Scotland can all be found in Edinburgh.
New research on the country’s most exclusive postcodes has revealed that they can all be found in the capital, where house prices have typically been at the top-end for the past decade.
Meanwhile separate figures show that the UK’s hottest property markets can all be found north of the border, with the top locations where properties have been the fastest to sell this year located in Scotland.
However, those looking for a home in Edinburgh’s best addresses should be prepared to break the bank in exchange for a home.
Bank of Scotland annual analysis found that Ann Street in the centre of the capital took the top spot, with the average home worth more than £1 million.
A property in the street, which is well-known for its aesthetics and Georgian architecture, costs about £1.7 million (£1,685,000) on average.
In second place is Wester Coates Avenue in the west of Edinburgh, with houses costing about £1,615,000, followed by Regent Terrance, near Calton Hill, where properties average more than £1.5 million (£1,529,000).
Wester Coates Avenue (Pic: Google)
Streets in North Berwick, Musselburgh and St Andrews featured among the 25 most expensive streets in Scotland.
Graham Blair, mortgages director at Bank of Scotland, said: “Ann Street in the beautiful city of Edinburgh tops the most expensive list, setting wealthy buyers back almost £1.7 million on average.
“While not in the top 10 priciest, homes in St Andrews also don’t come cheap, with The Scores and Donaldson Crescent offering properties at over £1.1million on average.”
Away from Edinburgh, London has been the most searched-for area among Britain’s home buyers in 2022, according to data from Rightmove.com.
READ MORE: House prices record biggest monthly fall since 2008
But the top locations where properties have been moved on the fastest to sellin 2022 are in Scotland.
The website identified Livingston in West Lothian, Scotland, as this year’s quickest market for home buyers, with properties being snapped up in 15 days on average.
During several months of 2021, Cornwall replaced London as the most searched-for location on Rightmove for home buyers, as people looked for coastal locations during the coronavirus pandemic.
Rightmove said this trend has reversed in 2022, as buyer search behaviour returned towards pre-pandemic patterns.
Searches for London have increased by 9% compared with last year while searches for Cornwall dropped by 18% and those for Devon fell by 17%, the website said.
London now has 36% more buyer searches than Cornwall compared with just 3% last year, Rightmove added. This is the biggest gap since before the pandemic, in 2019.
Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s property expert, said: “This year people searching for their next home have well and truly returned to the capital – we started to see the tide turning towards the end of last year, and throughout 2022 a lot of our trends in the market have started to head back towards where they were in 2019.”
READ MORE: House prices fall at fastest pace for over two years
Nationwide Building Society said on Tuesday that the housing market may achieve a “relatively soft landing” next year, with activity stabilising modestly below pre-pandemic levels and house prices edging lower, perhaps by around 5%.
And as living costs bite, there have been signs that renters are increasingly looking for certainty over their bills.
Rightmove said searches on its website for “bills included” when looking for rental properties are 57% higher than a year ago.
Robert Gardner, Nationwide Building Society’s chief economist, said: “For the first three-quarters of 2022, the housing market was remarkably resilient.
“For much of the year, activity levels remained at or above pre-Covid levels with annual house price growth in double digits, despite intense pressure on household finances from surging inflation and a steady rise in mortgage interest rates.
“Between January and August, the average UK house price increased by almost £20,000, from £255,556 to £273,751.”
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