Commercial property sales in Aberdeen have topped Edinburgh and Glasgow for the first time since oil prices crashed in late 2014.
Reporting sales worth a total of £166 million and a second consecutive quarter of growth in the Granite City during the first three months of this year, the Scottish Property Federation (SPF) said its figures reflected growing confidence in the market.
SPF, which represents 185 organisations throughout Scotland, analysed the most recent data available from the Registers of Scotland.
Edinburgh recorded £164m and Glasgow £96m in total value of sales, both down on Q4 2017 and year-on-year.
SPF director David Melhuish said: “It is the first time since 2014 that Aberdeen has had a higher total value of commercial sales than Edinburgh and Glasgow and the first time in 11 quarters that Edinburgh has not been the top city.
“Rising oil prices and a sense of returning confidence within Aberdeen is encouraging and could be paving the way for a sustained pick-up in commercial property transactions.”
The Aberdeen figure includes the sale of the Aker campus at Dyce for around £114m and the sale of Equinor’s building at Prime Four Business Park for £18.7m.
Elsewhere, Edinburgh’s APEX123 at Haymarket sold for £26m and in Glasgow one of the deals included the sale of retail units at 50-74 Sauchiehall Street for £15.3m.
Combined, these sales helped to support an 8%, or £73m overall, rise in commercial sales across Scotland to a total value of £966m.
It is the second consecutive quarterly increase in the total value of sales in Scotland and the highest figure since Q4, 2016. Year-on-year, the total value of commercial sales in Q1 2018 was 22%, or £171m higher than a year earlier.
Despite the increase, the number of transactions fell both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year.
There were 1,006 sales in the first quarter of this year, which is a drop of 15%, or 174 on Q4 2017 and 4%, or 41 on Q1 2017.
SPF said this was due to a small number of high value transactions, particularly in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, along with a 22%, or £101m, rise in the combined value of sales at or above £5m against Q4 2017.
