There is only one way to gauge what is really happening in the Scottish property market. That is to ask experts up and down the country and then to compare their figures both with that of other agents and surveyors and with the national data available from mortgage lenders and Registers of Scotland, the government department responsible for the country’s land and property registers. And that is just what we have done.

What follows is the distillation of the wisdom of nearly 150 property professionals, working in markets from Shetland to the Mull of Galloway.

The picture that emerges is extraordinarily varied. The northeast of Scotland continues to boom like nowhere else in the UK. Its economy, buoyed by the resurgent oil industry and high prices for grain, is moving to a rhythm entirely its own. Elsewhere in rural Scotland, there is no question the fizz of the past few years is now gone — but our experts still expect prices to rise over the coming year in much of the country.

Conditions in the central belt, however, are harder. The headline figures may suggest prices have fallen back just a little from their peak, but as anyone trying to sell at the moment will tell you, the apparent stability of average prices masks a far more difficult truth: there are simply no buyers for some properties. The For Sale signs go up and the schedules are prepared, but there are precious few viewers, and fewer notes of interest or solid offers.

Scotland’s property market is not immune to the problems affecting our southern neighbour — or indeed much of the rest of the developed world — but before anyone gets too gloomy, a moment’s reflection is worthwhile: the vast majority of homeowners are sitting on such massive piles of equity that a minor correction in prices might feel bad but is of little real consequence. We have introduced new indices this year to show how values have risen over the past five and 10 years. Typically, average values have risen by more than 50% over the past five years and by well over 150% over the past decade.

As well as the equity cushion that most owners enjoy, conditions are clearly far easier today for buyers. Assuming that, like most homeowners, you plan to find a home to serve you for the next five to seven years, you can buy in the reasonable confidence that by the time you want to sell, you too will have seen your home increase in value. None of the fundamentals that have driven house-price growth has gone away — the increasing number of households, strict limits on development and relatively cheap money.

Indeed, most agents argue that both buyers and sellers — whether trading up or scaling down — should find themselves better off. True, sellers may need to make price concessions to find a buyer, but this will be more than compensated for when they come to buy.

Anyone who does not need to sell before they buy is in a doubly advantageous position. Rent levels have risen sharply and the capital growth in buy-to-let investments may have come to an end, but for the moment at least rental yields look more attractive than ever.

So how to make the most of these difficult market conditions? First, remember that your house is fundamentally your home. Its value is only really of consequence when you buy or sell. The dinner-party house-price rise challenge (“you’ll never guess what the house next to mine just sold for”) might have been superseded by its gloomy alter ego, but this only really matters if you are cashing in your house for the last time.

The doomsayers who have been predicting a collapse in the housing market might be feted for their foresight, but this is like cheering a stopped clock’s accuracy on the twice-daily occurrence of its telling the right time. The Scottish housing market has been through difficult days dozens of times before and every time has recovered.

The principal factors that have driven the Scottish market upwards in the past decade are still with us. We are all going to have to make some adjustments: sales will not be quick, and price surprises will bring smiles to the faces of buyers, not sellers.

But given the typical sale-to-sale cycle, nearly everyone buying a home in Scotland in the coming year will sell it for more than they paid when the time comes to move on.

Explore Property

• Buying & Selling

• New Homes

• Overseas

• Interiors

• Investment

• Gardens

• Cool In Your Code

• Specials

• First-time buyer

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers