While on Arran it became apparent that many people are selling up and moving on. I imagine that most of the homes for sale (and there were numerous on the market) are in fact "second" homes, it was still jaw dropping to see so many "for sale" signs lining the road sides. It could also be that the credit crunch has hit a number of people living on Arran, thus forcing them to return to the mainland for alternative employment.
I had wondered, too, if a declining holiday market had hit people who run B&Bs but after chatting to a couple of islanders it seems the opposite is true. One told me that demand for rooms in B&Bs remains very strong and perhaps backs up the theory that the "staycation" is still on the up.
For so long Arran properties have fetched prices above the national average and rightly so given their often idyllic location. But the number of homes on the isle bought as "second" homes has been a continual headache for islanders who have frequently been unable to compete to buy the houses.
Now it seems that many more properties are flooding the marketplace. I plan to take a closer look at prices to see just whether a more buoyant property market has brought the cost of homes down a bit. Another islander told me that homes were staying on the market for "quite some time" whereas in previous times they would be snapped up almost before the "for sale" sign was erected.
So, if you ever fancied opening a B&B on Arran perhaps now is the time. It's certainly worth a closer investigation in any case. And it might be worth checking out some of the other popular Scottish isles to see if the same is happening there.
I wonder if anyone else has noticed a higher than average number of properties being sold in more remote locations across Scotland?
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