There was a time, not so long ago, when Cumbernauld was written off as the dreariest place in Scotland.
Much maligned, it twice won the ‘Plook on the Plinth’ award – in 2001 and 2005 – for being seen as the country’s ‘most dismal town’.
Famed for providing the concreted backdrop for the hit 1981 movie Gregory’s Girl, some of the buildings and streetscapes featured were later slated for their cold, brutalist design.
However, it seems the town has recently undergone a radical change in fortune, having emerged as the fastest place in Britain to sell a house.
According to new data from estate agents Rightmove, it takes 64 days on average – just over two months – to sell a house in the UK.
But in Cumbernauld, which was designated as a New Town in the 1950s, homes are now selling in a little over two weeks, typically just 15 days.
Homes in the Lanarkshire town fetch an average of £163,000, significantly below the £194,000 which the Office for National Statistics said in August was the average Scottish house price.
Although Cumbernauld as a settlement dates back centuries, the town underwent rapid expansion in the decades after the Second World War when thousands of new homes were built to relieve pressure on Glasgow.
The brutalist concrete architecture of Cumbernauld provided the backdrop for Gregory’s Girl
Last week, Rightmove published a new Speed of Market report looking at how long it takes houses in each area of the UK to be sold.
Amazingly, as well as Cumbernauld, the other nine of the top ten fastest-selling places in Britain are all in Scotland, including a cluster of towns close to Glasgow such as Renfrew, Cambuslang, Rutherglen, Paisley, Motherwell and East Kilbride.
Kilmarnock and Irvine in Ayrshire, plus Dunfermline in Fife, also feature in the UK top ten, with properties typically selling in less than three-and-a-half weeks. Outside Scotland, the fastest place to sell property is Heaton in Newcastle, where homes take an average of 26 days to find a buyer.
Across the UK, the slowest markets are in coastal areas such as St Austell in Cornwall, where homes are taking 101 days on average to be sold.
A Rightmove spokesman said: ‘Homes across the UK are taking an average of 64 days to sell, but this can vary significantly depending on where you live.
Scotland dominates the top ten, with all of the fastest markets north of the border.
Cumbernauld is now the quickest-selling area across Great Britain, with homes taking an average of just 15 days to sell.
Dee Hepburn and John Gordon Sinclair starred in the 1981 film which was set in Cumbernauld
‘Glasgow commuter towns also feature prominently.’
The faster speed of sales in Scotland is partly linked to the fact that sellers north of the Border must commission a home report, meaning buyers already have much of the information they need to strike a deal.
Last night Rightmove also provided a Scottish city-by-city breakdown of average times for finding a buyer.
In Glasgow and Stirling, homes are coming off the market in 24 days, a process which takes 27 days in Inverness.
Dundee homes are selling in 34 days, slightly quicker than in Perth and Edinburgh, where finding a buyer takes 40 days.
Scotland’s slowest city for sales is Aberdeen, where properties remain on the market for an average of 63 days before being sold.