Comment: Edinburgh simply needs to build more homes

Our latest report on the Capital's booming property market will make for very different reading depending on where you sit on the housing ladder.

The speed with which homes are being snapped up - often for well over the offers over price - will be hugely encouraging for anyone wanting to sell their home. But for anyone looking to buy, especially first-time buyers, it is yet another depressing sign of affordable housing moving further beyond their reach.

Of course most families will see the continuing growth in prices from both sides of the fence. Many parents and grandparents will have the comfort of seeing the value of their own property growing while worrying about the struggle facing their children and grandchildren.

Our overheated housing market impacts on us all in other ways too. One of the reasons the hospitals struggle to recruit the nurses they need is the growing cost of living in the Capital.

The simple solution is to build more homes - and make sure that plenty are available to buy or rent at below the current market value.

We are told that a deal is close to create an SNP-Labour coalition to run the city. The first job on their to do list should be clear.