Scottish Housing Market Review: Q3 2021

Residential LBTT; Homelessness

Residential LBTT

Residential LBTT revenues excluding ADS rose sharply from £20.8m in February 2021 to £38.3m in March, before falling to £18.3m in April, as transactions were brought forward due to the temporary increase of the zero rate threshold for all buyers to £250K (from £175K for first-time buyers, and £145K for other buyers), which took effect on 15 July 2020 and ended on 31 March 2021. Residential LBTT revenue has picked up since April 2021, with revenue for the first 5 months of the financial year 52.4% higher for 2021-22 relative to a 4 year average (2016-17 to 2019-20).

Source: Revenue Scotland

Homelessness

2020/21 saw 33,792 homelessness applications in Scotland, an annual decrease of 8.8% (-3,251), as illustrated in Chart 5.2. 27,571 households were assessed as being homeless (including those threatened with homelessness), a reduction relative to 2019/20 of 12.7% (-4,010). This included 30,345 (-15.5%) adults and 11,804 (-26.5%) children. There were 13,097 households in offered temporary accommodation as at 31 March 2021, an annual increase of 12.3% (+1,432).

On a per capita basis, West Dunbartonshire has the highest number of households assessed as homeless per 1,000 population (aged 16+) in 2020/21, at 11.9. This compares to a Scottish average of 6.1.

Source: Scottish Government

Chart 5.3 plots how homelessness applications and households in temporary accommodation have progressed since the start of the covid-19 pandemic on a quarterly basis, although note that this is not directly comparable to the official homelessness statistics. This chart uses Scottish Government statistics to Q4 2020 (solid line) and the Scottish Housing Regulator from Q1 2021 (dashed line) due to data availability. The quarterly data shows that since the start of the pandemic, homelessness applications continue to be below pre-pandemic levels. The 8,668 applications in Q2 2021 is 7% less than the same period in 2019. The number of households in temporary accommodation on the other hand increased during the pandemic from 11,345 in Q4 2019 to a peak of 14,151 (+25%) in Q3 2020 but has since fallen to 13,152 in Q2 2021.

Source: Scottish Government and SHR