Every quarter, the Centre for Real Estate Research at the University of Aberdeen Business School uses ASPC data to monitor trends in Aberdeen’s property market.

The figures released for the fourth quarter in 2018 demonstrate that our local market is still facing substantial challenges, with the annual house price change in Aberdeen City and suburbs being -1.4%. This compares with a figure of -3.9% for the same quarter in 2017. This is an improvement, albeit still a negative figure, on the previous year.

So, there are some modest signs that things are improving, or at least not continuing to deteriorate. As mentioned in my previous reports, the fourth quarter of each year and the first quarter of each year tend to be the two poorest quarters, with the spring and summer quarters being the most active.

Nevertheless, despite the continuing difficulty, sales of properties in the third and fourth quarters of 2018 exceeded the sales in the corresponding periods in 2017. The number of sales was 1,278, an increase of 11.6% compared with the volume of sales a year ago, in Q4 of 2017.

It is a little early yet, to make any judgement as to how 2019 will be. Overall, however, we should have some indication by the end of the first quarter how things are going.

The full Quarter 4 of 2018 report can be read here: https://www.aspc.co.uk/media/1677/fourth-quarter-2018.pdf