An estate agent has offered reassurance about the state of the Scottish property market and dismissed talk of a crash as "ridiculous".

While prices in Scotland have continued to be strong in recent years, there has been speculation that the country could be affected by a wider downturn in the market, with the International Monetary Fund last month claiming that the whole of Europe is at risk of a sharp fall in prices.

However, Bill Cullens, the chairman of Clyde, told the Scotsman that the fears are unfounded, commenting: "The idea of a price crash north of the border is completely ridiculous and there seems to have developed a culture of panic among some industry observers that a catastrophe is just around the corner."

"Nothing could be further from the truth. The conditions which led to a slowdown of the Scottish market in the 1990s simply do not exist today," he added.

His comments come less than two weeks after Steven Miller of Scottish estate agency Donald Ross said that while there was a chance that growth would slow, it appeared a crash was not likely.