House prices continue to grow in the Highland Region

House prices have continued to grow in the Highland Region for the third consecutive quarter, and has now reached a record high of £188,690.

I’m sure we’re all seeing the headlines such as “New year chill for UK housing market” and “Annual house price growth stagnates” but, as ever, it is important to recognise that not all property markets in the UK are experiencing the same effects, and it is therefore very important not to take UK-wide property market headlines (good or bad!) and assume they are applicable in our wee corner of the globe.

Also, it’s important to actually interpret what is actually being reported; To illustrate, the BBC’s graph in this article shows the line dropping recently which of course doesn’t look promising, but it’s important to distinguish that that is not house prices dropping. It is the growth that is dropping. As long as the graph is above zero, it mean prices are actually still increasing.

This strength in house prices is perhaps surprising against the daily doom and gloom media reports of the Brexit Crisis, but what this demonstrates is that often national UK events seem to have a very limited effect on the Lochaber property market, akin to dropping a stone in a pool of water where the ripples become less pronounced the further out you go, and this perhaps explains why we appear to be somewhat isolated from Brexit turmoil.

Of course, only time will tell if there will be any affect when Brexit happens, but at the time of writing, we still don’t know what the Brexit ‘deal’ will be, much less the resulting effects of this.

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