Scotland has a housing shortage and so far new build is not keeping pace with demand. In the mature sector, closing dates have started to appear again and the cost of rent continues to rise.
The recent changes to stamp duty may have put the brakes on the quick sale of large homes, but those at a more affordable price are changing hands quickly.
So what does this mean when taking your pick from top jobs in property and construction currently available on s1jobs?
Well, mostly it means you’re going to be busy.
Housing isn’t a luxury, it’s an essential and when demand outstrips supply things start to heat up.
We’ve seen this before and there’s always a fear a crash will follow a boom.
So how do you tell if the housing market is healthy or if it’s heading for a fall?
Harvard University claims to have the answer.
Boffins there have analysed figures going back for more than a century and come up with the conclusion the housing market follows a strict 18-year cycle.
They accurately predicted the 2008 downturn and have identified a four-step process that starts with recession, goes through a period of recovery then expansion and finally hyper-supply.
They’ve pinpointed 2024 as the year when the market will next reach a peak before it all starts to go south again . . . and then the housing market will recover, as it always does, bigger and better than before.
Blips and booms are just part of the natural order of the universe, like growing pains and butter-side-down toast.
Of course it would be nice if the whole process were seamless and smooth, but change comes out of the turbulence and that can be a good thing. It teaches the property industry to be more efficient and allows new building methods to be introduced.
Would builders be so open to new ideas if they didn’t have the pressure of trying to attract buyers during difficult times?
And would the move to modular building, with many components built in factory settings before being moved on-site, have happened without the need to deliver the higher quality buyers now demand?
During the last recession many of the most innovative developments appeared in the social housing sector. At that time it was only housing associations who were buying and they demanded more for their money from the developers.
Now lots of those innovations have become standard across the whole sector.
It’s more proof, if it were needed, good things – and robust, lucrative property careers – can come out of tough times.
For the latest Property vacancies visit s1jobs.com and why not head over to s1homes.com to search over 30,000 properties to buy and rent across Scotland.