HOUSE-BUILDING was at the heart of George Osborne's budget speech but analysts said it remains to be seen how measures will impact on Scotland.
The Chancellor's measures included the provision of £150m to help self-builders in a "right to build" scheme, and £500m for small house building firms.
It was part of the Chancellor' plans to support the construction of 200,000 homes as he said "we're getting Britain building".
There was an extension of the Help to Buy equity loan scheme in England for the rest of the decade, to help an estimated 120,000 more households. The scheme allows buyers to secure a 20% government-backed loan on the cost of a new house.
The Scottish Government unveiled its version of the equity loan scheme in September.
The £220m scheme will run until September 2016 and is open to first-time and existing buyers looking for a new-build home.
Simon Brown, partner and head of residential property at CKD Galbraith said: "The Budget statement has outlined a number of positive steps to help strengthen the UK property market including the extension of the help to buy scheme in England until 2020.
"The market in Scotland has witnessed tangible improvements as a result of the Scottish help to buy scheme assisting first time buyers and consequently helping to revitalise segments of the market further up the ladder.
"It will be interesting to see what may happen in terms of the Scottish scheme which is currently in place until 2016, on the back of today's announcement."
The government also attempted to cut down on stamp duty tax avoided through company-owned homes by expanding its 15% rate from residential properties worth over £2m to those worth more than £500,000.
Mr Brown added: "As a firm we have experienced a steady improvement in the Scottish property market since 2013, a growth which has continued this year however we do expect a slight slowdown in the run up to the Scottish independence referendum.
"We welcome the announcement as real encouragement for the growth of the UK property market and subsequently the Scottish market going forward after the referendum."
The annual rise in house prices across the UK is expected to peak at more than 9% this year, prompting George Osborne to task the Bank of England's financial stability watchdog with being "particularly vigilant" about the risk of a bubble developing.
It's a different story in Scotland, and figures from Home.co.uk show that while asking prices in England and Wales were up 7.9% year on year, there was still no sign of a market recovery in Scotland where prices fell 0.3% last month and 1.4% over the last year.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said that "much more needs to be done" and criticised Mr Osborne for not deciding to offer help to struggling home buyers through changes to stamp duty.
It expected house price growth to peak at 9.3% in the third quarter of this year.
Mr Osborne told MPs he had asked the Bank's Financial Policy Committee to keep a close eye on the housing market.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article