Recent statistics from NHBC showed that the number of homes registered in Scotland rose by 9 per cent from July to September 2014.

While this is good news for the Scottish housing market things will change next year when the Help to Buy equity scheme ends next July.

Home for Scotland chief executive Philip Hogg in response to the figures said, “Whilst these statistics are encouraging, we believe this increase will be negatively impacted by this year’s funding for the Scottish government’s Help to Buy (Scotland) shared equity scheme running out in July and that this will be reflected in future figures towards the end of the year and early 2015.

“Given the scheme generated nearly 5000 reservations and sales in just ten months, this funding interruption resulted in significant business uncertainty as the industry awaited the Scottish government’s next move.

“Even with the recently announced reduced price ceiling of £250,000, we still suspect that the £100m budget for 2015/16 will be insufficient to last the full year.

“We therefore hope that Help to Buy will benefit from some of the extra £125m housing investment announced in the draft Budget so that builders have the confidence to invest in more much needed housing development.”