Scottish land values have fallen for the last five years across all grades of land, according to real estate firm Savills. The sharpest-falling land was grade-three arable, which fell more than 8% from an average of £5,793 per acre to £5,317 per acre from 2013 to 2017. Across all types of land there was a fall in value of 4.5% over the last five years. Prime arable land took the smallest decline of 3.7%, from an average of £7,941 per acre to £7,644 per acre.

However, Charles Dudgeon, head of the UK Rural Agency at Savills, said the market in Scotland is extremely diverse. “There’s a vibrant market going on right now. Different people have different drivers to buy land, and there are a wide range of uses for it.

“From 2001 until now it is probably the longest period of uninterrupted growth in land values in Scotland in the last 100 years, but everyone has a different idea of value.” Charles added: “People are looking to what is happening next. The real driver is the lack of supply on the market. It’s a scarce commodity. “There’s still a good story to tell in terms of owning land.”

Dugald Hamilton, Scottish Regional Manager at the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (AMC) has found there to be a significant increase in the prices of good-quality arable land.

Dugald has also found that more people are turning towards selling on land privately. He said: “We’re seeing more and more of this.

“I think possibly the better-equipped farms with a good house and a good steading are doing better, as folk are looking to buy something they might need to spend a little more on but can expand without having a lot of work to put into it first.”

Dugald added: “For a small time, the only place we really saw a decrease was in bits of the northeast, but that would be more oil-related than anything else.”