Rural property and farm land sales in Perthshire are harvesting the benefits of a rekindled confidence in the housing market and an improved economic position.
Perth-based property expert Archie Melville, of Bell Ingram, said that both buyers and sellers should be encouraged by a rise in rural and semi-rural property sales in the last quarter of 2013.
He believes the trend will continue throughout 2014 but warns that, unlike other fast-growing Scottish property hotspots, such as Edinburgh and Aberdeen, Perth’s property market as a whole is growing at a much slower rate.
He said: “The trends we saw during the last quarter of 2013 show a slow but steady increase for general property sales in the Perth area. Rural properties are where we are seeing most growth.
“This has a lot to do with banks and lenders, along with buyers to a certain extent, having more confidence and investing in what is a growing market.
“Forestry and agricultural land, especially arable land, is in demand.
“There’s not a huge supply out there, so investors, with the support of banks, are really seeing the long-term value that I believe will continue to grow.”
Despite positive growth in the agricultural sector, plots and development sites are showing the poorest performance.
Mr Melville warned that lack of lending by banks over the past four years has made it difficult to find buyers for land that needs to be developed.
He said: “Plots and land for development is certainly the worst performing sector of the market.
“The past four or five years has proved tricky as the lack of funding has meant land has just sat in some cases for several years.
“Hopefully, this sector will benefit from lenders starting to have more confidence again and we will see an improvement within the next 12 months.
“What it does mean is that there are significant opportunities out there for those people with the finance, so we are looking forward to starting to see more interest from buyers.”