It is a Sunday night at the kitchen table. The offer on the new house has been accepted, the boxes are half packed, and the old flat is still in your name. One of you says sell it, take the money, keep life simple. The other one says hold on, we might regret that. Both of you are right about something, and neither of you has the one number that would settle it: what the flat would earn if you kept it.
We have sat in on that conversation with a lot of Glasgow couples since 1999, and it usually goes the same way. The person who wants to sell is thinking about the hassle. The person who wants to keep it is thinking about ten years from now. Once the rent is on the table next to the costs, the argument tends to end on its own. So here is the number, and everything that sits around it.
At the time of writing, October 2026, a one bedroom flat in Glasgow’s city centre or West End is advertised on Rightmove at around £1,200 per month and a two bedroom at around £1,450. The average private rent across Greater Glasgow is £1,266 per month according to the Office for National Statistics, and the Citylets report for the second quarter of 2026 shows Glasgow properties letting in 28 days on average, with 65% let within a month. If the flat is worth £150,000, selling it costs about £4,000. Keeping the flat while you buy a £300,000 house means £24,000 of Additional Dwelling Supplement on the house, which you get back if you sell the flat within 36 months. Three years of rent on the flat is £38,880 after our fee. Those are the four numbers the decision turns on, and the rest of this article shows the working.
The decision most people make too quickly
Selling feels like the tidy option. Then the money goes into the new house, the deposit or the wedding, and within a year it has gone. Keep the flat and the picture looks different. In ten years you still own a Glasgow property, the rent has been paid into your account every month, and it has gone up more than once along the way. Rental property has given plenty of Glasgow landlords a steady income and growth in value over the long run. Neither is guaranteed, but you cannot get either from a property you have already sold.
We have looked after properties for landlords since 1999, and a good number of them came to us this way. They were not investors. They were people with a spare set of keys and a decision to make, and they wanted to know whether keeping the property was realistic. In most cases it was, and several of those landlords have since bought a second one.
What a Glasgow property earns today
The market is in good shape. Rents in Glasgow have kept rising, good properties let in weeks rather than months, and demand is steady at the right price. In our own commentary in that Citylets report we said that demand is highly sensitive to price, and that a small adjustment of £25 to £50 per month can noticeably increase viewing requests. Setting the rent is a judgement, and it is our job rather than yours. We look at what has let on your street in the last few months, not the headline average, and we price to let quickly to a good tenant. Our article on whether your property is priced right explains how we go about it.
To put a figure on it, a one bedroom flat in the city centre or the West End is advertised at around £1,200 per month on Rightmove at the time of writing, October 2026, which is £14,400 a year before costs. A two bedroom at £1,450 per month brings in £17,400. Those are ordinary asking rents, not the top end of the market.
What selling costs you
Selling the flat starts with a Home Report, which has to be in place before the property is marketed and typically costs between £400 and £800. The estate agent and the solicitor are paid when the sale completes, out of the proceeds. On a £150,000 Glasgow flat, with an agent charging around 1% plus VAT and a solicitor on a fixed fee, that comes to roughly £4,000.
That £4,000 comes off the sale price and you never see it again. The ADS on your new house works differently. It is paid when you buy, but sell the flat within 36 months and every penny comes back, so for those three years it is money parked rather than money lost, while the rent comes in. Letting the flat costs you nothing up front either. With our Fully Managed service you pay nothing until your tenant has moved in and the rent has started.
There is also the option you keep. A let property can still be sold later, with a tenant in place or at the end of the tenancy, when the timing suits you rather than the timing of a house move or a probate deadline.
Two things to check before you decide
If there is a mortgage on the property, your lender needs to agree to it being let. Most do, often with a small change to the terms, and we can tell you what to ask for.
If you are buying another home and keeping this one, the Additional Dwelling Supplement applies to the new purchase. It is 8% of the price of the home you are buying, not the one you are keeping, and it is the biggest number in this decision, so it deserves proper sums rather than a shrug. The rule, under Schedule 2A of the LBTT Act, is that you pay it at the time, and you can claim all of it back if you sell your previous home within 36 months. Keep the flat beyond three years and the ADS stays paid.
So spread it over those 36 months and set it against the rent.
| Price of the home you are buying | ADS at 8% | Spread over 36 months | Rent from a one bed at £1,200, after our fee | Rent from a two bed at £1,450, after our fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £200,000 | £16,000 | £444 per month | £1,080 per month | £1,305 per month |
| £300,000 | £24,000 | £667 per month | £1,080 per month | £1,305 per month |
| £400,000 | £32,000 | £889 per month | £1,080 per month | £1,305 per month |
If the flat has no mortgage, the rent covers the ADS comfortably at every price. If it has a mortgage, take the monthly interest off the rent and look again. On a £300,000 house and a one bed with £400 of interest a month, the two sides are close, and the deciding factor is whether you want to own two Glasgow properties in ten years’ time or one. If you are not buying anywhere, because you have inherited the flat or moved in with a partner, there is no ADS at all and the sums are simple.
There is also a middle road that most people miss. Let the flat now, and the 36 months are yours to think in. Sell before the three years are up and you still get every penny of the ADS back, with two or three years of rent in the bank. That is the decision we would want to make with the facts in front of us, not in the week of a house move.
What three years could look like
This is the part that settles most kitchen-table arguments, so here are the numbers on a £150,000 one bedroom flat let at £1,200 per month.
The rent over three years is £43,200, or £38,880 after our fee. Then there is the value. Registers of Scotland’s annual report for 2025-26 shows Glasgow had the biggest rise in median price of any Scottish city over the last ten years, up 57%, and the UK House Price Index puts Glasgow City prices up 3.9% in the year to June 2026. If the next three years only match that last one, the flat is worth about £168,000, an £18,000 gain you would never have seen.
Add the two together and three years of keeping the flat comes to roughly £57,000 before mortgage interest, repairs and tax. Set that against an ADS of £24,000 on a £300,000 house, which you get back anyway if you sell inside the three years, and the decision stops being about tidiness. Prices and rents can fall as well as rise, and none of this is guaranteed, but the last ten years in Glasgow are a reasonable place to start the conversation.
What we do, and what you do
You hand us the keys. We value the property, photograph it, film a walkthrough, and advertise it on Rightmove, Citylets and our own website. We carry out the viewings, credit reference the applicants, draw up the tenancy agreement, register the deposit and pay for an independent inventory. Once your tenant is in, we collect the rent and pay it to you with a statement each month, handle every call from the tenant, arrange and check repairs, inspect the property with photographs, and keep every safety certificate on a diary so nothing runs out. The Repairing Standard and the rest of the compliance sit with us day to day.
Fully Managed is 10% of the rent plus £200 for each new tenancy. All prices include VAT. On a £1,450 per month let that is £145 per month, deducted from the rent before it is paid to you, with the £200 taken from the first month’s rent.
Find out what it would earn
You already own the property. Get a free instant rental valuation and see the figure in a couple of minutes, or call us with the address and we will tell you the rent we would market it at and what that leaves you each month after our fee. No obligation, and no pressure to let it. If the number says sell, we will tell you that too.
This article reflects the general position in Scotland in October 2026, with rents and prices as published at the time of writing. It isn’t financial, tax or legal advice.
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