Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Plenty of houses being built in the West of Scotland.
Where are you? In Midlothian the number of dwellings has increased by 18% in the last 10 years. In Inverclyde it's 3%.
(Over the last 20 years it's 33% and 0.7%).
Inverclyde will be because they have demolished all the Port Glasgow tenements and probably a good few in Greenock as well I imagine.
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