Scottish property ownership doubles
PROPERTY ownership in Scotland has more than doubled in the last 30 years, with the government’s right-to-buy legislation contributing to a huge cut in the proportion of people living in public housing.
Nearly two thirds of homes are now owner-occupied, compared with a figure of just over 30 per cent in 1970.
The continued growth of the private property market north of the Border reveals it is now narrowing the gap on the rest of the UK, where about 67 per cent of houses are owner occupied, after years of domination by the public sector. But home ownership in Scotland has now topped the European average, where about 61 per cent of houses are owner occupied.
The latest increase is in line with the trend in recent years for home ownership.
In 1999, when the first Scottish Household Survey was carried out, 61 per cent of homes were owner occupied. The following year, that figure rose to 62 per cent and in 2001, the total stood at 63 per cent.
Reprinted from The Scotsman.