Median price at August 2008: £170,324

General increase since Sept 2007: 4%

Projected increase to Sept 2009: 0%

Five-year increase: 74% (£97,826)

Ten-year increase: 169% (£63,235)

The complete Glasgow East price guide

Since the industrial revolution set its noxious emissions into the 19th-century winds, the west end of most northern European cities has been the location of choice for those who could afford to escape the factories’ pollution.

The heavy industry may be gone but old preconceptions remain and, as such, Glasgow East remains a poor relation to the city hot spots in the west, north and south.

A number of waves have threatened to drag Glasgow East into the cosmopolitan fabric of the city: in the 1990s Dennistoun enjoyed a bohemian makeover as priced-out West End art graduate refugees looked to exploit its authentic local colour and cheap real estate for their own ends. It was only a matter of time before the estate agents, coffee shops and delicatessens moved in (albeit with an east end twist).

The announcement of Glasgow’s successful bid for the 2014 Commonwealth Games set the market aflutter with reports that widespread infrastructure improvements and a need for accommodation could spark a buy-to-let frenzy. For now, at least, the price-sensitive, mortgage-reliant east end is under the same fetid cloud of uncertainty that covers all but the most prime Scottish markets.

Before the slowdown began to bite last year, the GSPC’s Mark Hordern told us: “There is no question that the once marooned east end is being slowly incorporated into the fabric of the city centre, and prices, especially for first-time buyers, are growing to reflect that.”

In Dennistoun there was strong evidence that both locals and young artists were being priced out. At the peak of the boom in 2006, new two-bed flats on the cusp of the unfashionable locales of Riddrie, Haghill and Carntyne were garnering as much as £145,000, according to local agency Wallace Quinn.

However, in this conspicuously price-conscious market, our experts feared correctly that the east end gravy train would hit the buffers last year. Hordern said that after five rises in interest rates since 2006, the writing was on the wall. “Sooner rather than later that is bound to have an impact in the east end on both market confidence and homeowners’ abilities to trade up through their local market,” he said. Now, for the second year running, the solicitors’ selling organisation is predicting flat prices across all east end sectors.

The east end, with its high quota of first-time buyers, has been particularly fertile for new-home builders, but Peter Brogan, managing director of Strathclyde Homes, says even here his industry is struggling. “These are the worst conditions our industry has ever experienced,” he says. “We’ve seen thousands of redundancies this year and any builder simply covering their costs will have done well.

“With costs fixed, builders are finding it impossible to keep cash flowing into business.”

Brogan is in no doubt that his industry needs help — especially in areas such as the east end, where regeneration strategies are very much tied to providing good new homes. “More liquidity in the mortgage finance markets and even a half per cent interest rate cut could make a massive difference,” he says.

“The irony is that there is still a massive shortage of homes in this country in relation to demand but, if we are to get back on track, we must tackle first-time buyers’ ease of access to the market as a matter of priority. Young couples need those 95% or 100% mortgages that were available as recently as last year.

“A lack of new entrants to the market creates a chain effect of stagnation at every level. Traditionally, the East End has been great for first-time buyers and builders but, with so little confidence around, nobody is starting projects that were slated for completion in the next two years.”

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