Fears Scotland could be facing the first annual property fall in more than a decade have been heightened with reports of property sales plummeting by up to 50%.

Online property guide myhouseprice.com shows that in Q1 of 2008 property sales fell year on year by 18% from 24,813 homes to 20,289.

Previously mortgages of up to 120% helped buyers onto the property market now estate agents are claiming a growing number of homes only sell after being put on the market at a fixed price or following price drops.

The Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre have seen sales diminish by almost 50% last month compared to the same period last year. Neil Harrison, marketing manager at the firm said: "People are choosing to wait for the price they want.

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"Prices are not plummeting in Edinburgh yet, but because in Scotland we can get contracts signed within a few weeks we are starting to get a chain where people might wait to sell before they buy, which will then stop other people from buying who are also waiting to sell first."

The Scottish market has not been hit as hard as south of the border where sales have dropped by up to 61% in the last year but regions such as the Highlands and the West have seen as estimated downturn of between 25% and 30%.

Andrea Gibson, a spokeswoman for myhousprice.com, said: "The reason for the drop in the number of sales all across Scotland is that nobody can get a mortgage at the moment. Seven months ago there were 4,000 buy-to-let mortgage products available, and today there are under 1,000, and those have high lending criteria.

"If the lenders had the money to lend and would slacken their criteria for lending, then houses would sell. There are loads of people who want to buy, but can't.

"It's inevitable that we are going to see house prices falls in Scotland. I don't think they are going to be devastating but we will see it."

(GK/JM)