Median price at August 2008: £185,255

General increase since Sept 2007: 17%

Projected increase to Sept 2009: 0-2%

Five-year increase: 97% (£94,225)

Ten-year increase: 249% (£53,188)

The complete Inverness-shire price guide

While Inverness, the Highland capital, has seen a market downturn this year — perhaps as a reaction to the hype attached to the city for the past three years — rural Inverness-shire has enjoyed a somewhat easier time of it.

However, as John Bound of CKD Galbraith confirms, the national downturn has effected every sector of his market. The top end in this prime, well-connected relocation hot spot, as elsewhere where mortgage finance is less of an issue, has maintained a trajectory most similar to the past five years. “New homes, new bungalows and conversions are the property styles sticking most and the general market picture is very flat simply due to a lack of transactions,” says Bound.

A lack of confidence in the market is clearly an issue as both buyers and sellers bide their time to see how issues such as mortgage lending criteria, stamp duty, home reports and interest rates play out. As a result, a lack of supply appears to be keeping prices stable for those that sell, although there is no sense of deals being completed in the swift, slick fashion of the boom years.

Although the average price of flats in Inverness doubled from £45,000 to £90,000 in the three years to 2007, in more rural locations Inverness-shire is a two-tier market with incomers paying fancy prices for prime real estate and locals competing for properties that are rising at just above the annual rate of wage inflation. This year, the lack of relocation cash is felt more keenly but overall prices are holding up well.

Bound confirms this: “Pricing things competitively is currently more key than in the recent past and there is no doubt that the best agents are earning their money. Getting the right advice and managing expectations are now much more important for anyone entering what is a ‘difficult' market’.

“People are looking for any sign of encouragement but, with so much apparently still to happen, few are prepared to commit to either buying or selling. My feeling is that our good-quality, traditional homes look inexpensive at the moment and, when we look back from a more secure future vantage point, we will view this year as a time that offered a real opportunity for buyers to make their money work for them.

“The window of opportunity may not last long, however. Buyers will not hold off indefinitely as people’s reasons for moving, such as schools or jobs supercede their fears over economic concerns. Politically, too, it makes sense for the government to do everything in their power to see the market kick on again, and I think an interest rate cut could be the key.”

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