Glasgow is struggling compared to Edinburgh when it comes to creating new housing stock, analysis of government statistics from estate agency DJ Alexander has found.
Between 2023/24 Edinburgh had the highest number of all sector new builds at 1,890, which is 12.5% of the total.
Glasgow city, however, only had 440 newbuild starts which is just 2.9% of the total and the lowest annual figure ever since this data began being collated in 1996.
If you add together the areas surrounding Edinburgh to include Fife, Midlothian, West Lothian and East Lothian, 38.9% of all newbuild starts in Scotland are occurring in and around the capital.
David Alexander, chief executive officer of DJ Alexander Scotland, said: “We cannot have a housing sector which is focused on one part of Scotland at the expense of the rest of the country. We need housing across all areas to meet demand now and in the future.
“Edinburgh and the surrounding areas are now taking up a growing volume of newbuild activity, and, in the long term, this cannot be healthy for the wider Scottish housing market. We need a broad range of activity over a wider geographic area to ensure that demand is being met wherever it arises.”
New build across Scotland fell from 16,582 in 2023/24 to 15,104 in 2024/25, which is the lowest 12-month figure since 2012/13.
To put this into context, these numbers are 4,327 and 5,838 lower respectively than the pandemic years of 2020/21 and 2021/22.
Alexander added: “If supply remains subdued at the current level, then there can only be one outcome which is greater demand leading to much greater price rises as the market struggles to produce enough homes for Scotland’s current and future population.
“The private rented sector has never experienced the current level of demand. We regularly have unprecedented numbers of people applying for properties without adequate supply to meet the number of tenants.
“Given that the volume of social housing is already unable to meet the existing demand for homes, with hundreds of thousands on waiting lists, and tens of thousands homeless and in temporary accommodation, there is the very real possibility that these figures highlight just how much worse an already difficult market is going to get.”
