Fife's largest town, Kirkcaldy boasts a decent mixture of both private and public sector housing.

And Clear Property Investment are firm favourites when it comes to purchasing property in the area.

Fife is in the top 100 shopping destinations in the UK and has excellent road and rail access to nearby university town St Andrews and the City of Edinburgh - offering rural living with big city comforts nearby. It's also a mere hour's drive from Glasgow and Dundee while just 90 minutes in the car will take you to Aberdeen.

Fife's one of Scotland's quickest growing areas with major regeneration taking place in Kirkcaldy itself at Dysart.

An excellent alternative to big-city living, the area has plenty of scenic routes - the famous Coastal Walk - and villages in its midst. Its historical attractions (this was the ancient seat of kings after all) and natural resources also annually draw touists in their thousands. It has 47 conservation areas and a coastline of beautiful beaches (four have Blue Flags) and busy harbours. Then there's the huge appeal to golf fans with many excellent courses, including the world famous Old Course in St Andrews.

Education-wise, there's more graduates in Fife than the national average. Seats of Learning include Scotland's oldest University at St Andrews and The Adam Smith Institute. Adam Smith has places for 35,000 students and 900 lecturers. Other colleges in the area include Carnegie and Elmwood while Kirkcaldy itself has three of the University of Dundee's campuses for Nursing and Midwifery.

Cost of living in the area has been cited as ten per cent below the national average with the average price of a house £140,883 (July to Sept 2009) compared to £154,453 for the Scottish average. Business in the area has gone from shipbuilding and minining to precision-engineering, renewable energy and microtechnology. Major firms include Babcock (Rosyth Dockyard), Shell UK & Exxon Mobil, Bosch Rexroth, Raytheon Systems Ltd and FMC Technologies. The finance sector is represented with Lloyds TSB while world-wide retailer Amazon also makes its presence felt. Major business sites include Energy Park Fife, John Smith Business Park and Masterton Park.

Meanwhile, a new £120m bridge from Fife to Glasgow has made working in the West and living in Fife a realistic possibility for thousands who fancy life in a rural location and work in the city.

Getting back to Kirkcaldy itself, the town was the recipient of a £2m Scottish Government grant to improve the town centre. This will include improved lighting, signs, street furniture and resurfacing work. Here at Clear Property Investment we're in no doubt Kirkcaldy is one to watch!

View other news from June 2010