A smartly spoken Edinburgh interloper will break into Glasgow’s Byres Road at 9am tomorrow.

It’s not a heist: simply one of Edinburgh’s most prominent residential property agents – well-known to well-heeled New Towners – deciding, at last, that Glasgow’s west end is the place to do business.

Rettie & Co, the Edinburgh property management and sales company, opens its new shop and office in Glasgow, with local property expert Maitland Walker running the show. It’s a development that gives Simon Rettie, the managing director, some satisfaction when he considers the scorched earth from the bombed-out property landscape in the last two years.

“We have identified that there is a requirement in the west end of Glasgow for the kind of high-end services that we offer. Competitors who have been under pressure will have cut their service levels to customers but we’ve maintained and improved our levels,” he says, sitting in the boardroom of his Wemyss Place office off Edinburgh’s once elegant, now traffic-blighted Queen Street.

But he remains under no illusion about the precarious state of Scotland’s residential property market. “We’re seeing very few new-build starts – and that’s two years now. We have a diminishing stock in a society where we are needing more new houses. Houses don’t last forever and some of the stock – including the state stock – is in need of renewal. That’s not happening.”

Mr Rettie says there are plenty of pilot initiatives to get the funding for mid-market and affordable housing started to fast-track that supply, but the major blockage is still about the lack of bank lending to developers and home buyers – particularly first-time buyers anxious to get on the ladder.

“We need a healthier market, from the top to the bottom. It’s a cycle, it always has been. There is a slowness right now, with the volume of houses being traded something like 40% to 50% of what it was in normal levels in 2007. Of course, you might argue that wasn’t normal back then but that was the reality,” he says. Rettie, with a turnover of £4 million and employing around 60 people, has sold 150 new-build properties since May 2009.

“As a business, we’re back to 65% to 70% of the volumes of what we had. Clearly, that’s good news for us. But our gain must be someone else’s loss.”

Mr Rettie and his directors made their decision to batten down the hatches ahead of the storm, and while they are now scouring for opportunities like the west end incursion, they are extremely cautious.

“We’re fortunate in that we weren’t speculative in the ‘good’ days. We’re well-funded and we don’t have debt. That’s a major comfort in today’s market. That allows us to take on the position in the west end, where there is a distinct market similar to part of Edinburgh and where Maitland has vast experience and local knowledge on a micro-level.”

Glenalmond-educated Mr Rettie, 47, is a scion of the family that founded Wm Low grocers in Dundee in the 1860s (it was acquired by Tescos in 1994). He has been in the business since leaving college, and qualified as a chartered surveyor at Strutt and Parker before starting his own business in 1989 age 26. He set up Rettie & Co in 1993.

“My first company, which I still own, is called Edinburgh and Glasgow Investment. It’s taken 20 years to put Glasgow on the map with Edinburgh!”

Mr Rettie still makes sure that he visits properties every day. “I’m up early and usually viewing homes to get a feel for the market. That’s what I enjoy about the business; it helps me remain connected to what’s going on.”

But house sales are only a part of Rettie’s estate agency picture. Rettie & Co also has a sizeable letting and management wing, which has a dominant presence in the New Town, and the sought-after Stockbridge, Comely Bank and leafy Murrayfield areas. There are around 25 Rettie staff working in this letting and management sector.

“It’s an important revenue-earner that tends to work in the opposite direction to sales. People have woken up to rental. When we first started there were only eight firms that did it and six of us were [Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors] RICS-accredited, now there are in excess of 130 companies offering letting in Edinburgh. It’s quite a busy highway.”

Mr Rettie says the barrier to entry is low, and it remains competitive and unregulated. “We would rather be in this and offer our level of service because, ultimately, someone renting their residential property wants that valuable asset to be looked after. You can’t afford not to give the full-service inspections that an asset like this requires.”

Over 40% of Rettie & Co’s business is non-transactional, through management fee income from lettings and professional work, while there is also a rural team working in Melrose.

“Some people have bought property as an asset class. And looking at it as part of of balanced porfotlio with stocks, shares, bonds, it is still important. Now might be the time to buy bricks and mortar. It was important to get the 10% growth when the market was on the up; when it’s going down you want to make sure the fabric is being maintained. The asset performs better if it is kept in good shape. Residential property, unlike commercial property, you can always get a rent of some sort for. And it is fairly liquid: if you don’t want it, you can sell it. In terms of an asset class it fits into other things.

“It’s had a fantastic run over 10 years and it’s had a correction over two.”

Rettie asks rhetorically where it is going to go next, and answers himself: “The markets have speculated enormously, but I think there will be some uncertainty until after the election.”

Then he returns to his newest venture. “We have extended our offering in Glasgow. We’re picking up new instructions for our rental team on a regular basis so there is a place for a company like us to perform in the west end of Glasgow. It’s a top-end service offering where people are discerning. We’re giving it a go.”