Median price at August 2008: £219,124

General increase since Sept 2007: -1%

Projected increase to Sept 2009: 0-2%

Five-year increase: 51% (£145,188)

Ten-year increase: 185% (£76,943)

The complete price guide

Traditionally the south side of Edinburgh has comprised a little bit of everything, but last year, as other locations streaked ahead, we discussed Edinburgh South as becoming the second choice location of the capital’s elite.

A combination of the right properties and the right buyers coming together in Barnton and Murrayfield last year saw The Grange, in particular, cast in the role of poor relation. But Savills’ Peter Lyell and Murray Beith Murray’s Sandy Burnett believed the area could dispel its second-prize status in some style — as long as the right homes in the £5m bracket became available. That caveat proved crucial and as confidence seeped from the market following the spring’s gloomy economic forecasts, big-hitting buyers and sellers battened down the hatches and retreated from sight.

Knight Frank, typical of the capital’s top agents, saw a number of £2m-£3.5m south side sales in a brisk first half of the year but nothing comparable to that over the summer. As Matthew Munro explains: “Most properties are selling at the same level as last year — or at worst, a reduction of around 5% on the peak boom prices of last summer — but this should be set in context in a city where prices have more than doubled at the top of the market in the past 10 years.

“Bridging costs and liquidity are big concerns for both buyers and sellers. The cost of moving home is now markedly more expensive as lenders no longer look to absorb fees to build volume business, but look more cautiously to turn a coin from each transaction.”

Eight out of 10 sales on the south side are still going perfectly well and as long as you are trading up, you should do just as before. “These are different times and there are new opportunities for those that take good advice,” says Munro.

For the shrewd, this could be an even better market than before. Munro says: “The public need to see confidence to come back into the market because there are a lot of opportunities out there.”

One increasingly viable option for the well-heeled is a semi-rural commute. At offers over £1.5m, Preston Dene on the East Lothian/Midlothian border, with Knight Frank, is typical of what is available to the intrepid few looking to follow the value. Indeed, it is possible that well-heeled Edinburgh could see a mini exodus this year as buyers seek more bang for their buck beyond the city limits.

Closer to home, the English-style home chain has become the key dreaded prospect for our market: agents are suggesting that would-be buyers sell first before committing to buy in a market where activity is sluggish.

The talk has been of managing expectations rather than breaking records this year as, post-Northern Rock, the number of sales completions in the city has fallen by 60%, according to the ESPC. The market and individuals are having to adjust to a new way of thinking — but that should not obscure the fact that, according to HBOS, the average house price in the capital has risen from £76,943 in 1998 to £219,124 today and a lot of people have become extremely well-off as a result.

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