Buy-to-let 'booming' in Scotland
Wednesday April 2nd 2008
The credit crunch may have made mortgage lending harder to come by, but the buy-to-let sector for residential property is booming in Scotland, experts have claimed.Recently opening a Scottish division, the National Landlords Association (NLA) claimed that letting out residential property was an increasing trend in Scotland, allowing the local buy-to-let sector to defy the property market's UK-wide downturn.
The Bank of Scotland's Scottish House Price Index for Q4 2007 recently revealed that house prices north of the border rose by 2.4 per cent while the UK as a whole suffered an 0.8 per cent quarterly drop-off in prices.
David Kendall, regional representative for Scotland for the NLA, said: "Basically, from a rental point of view the outlook is excellent. Yields are increasing, and rental void's decreasing.
"Probably the biggest challenge for investors is that it's not as easy to finance buy-to-let now, with the credit crunch – that's a general thing which is certainly happening down in England as well."
He added that the housing market is more stable in Scotland than elsewhere, particularly in relation to the boom and bust cycles undergone in the south-east of England.