Average house price continues modest annual gain
The average price of a property in Scotland was 2% higher in April 2023 than in April 2022, according to the latest provisional statistics from the UK House Price Index released by Registers of Scotland.
The figure of £187,150 was also 1.3% higher than the March 2023 average on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, and 0.5% higher when seasonally adjusted.
Across the UK, the average price was £286,489, 3.5% up on April 2022 and 0.5% up on the previous month non-seasonally adjusted, or 0.4% seasonally adjusted.
Year-on-year increases were recorded in 24 out of 32 local authority areas. The largest increase was in East Lothian (17.2%) – which also saw the highest average price paid at £333,715 – followed by Inverclyde (12.0%) and Argyll & Bute (7.3%). The largest mainland decrease was recorded in City of Aberdeen (7.0%), followed by Falkirk (2.3%) and Clackmannanshire (1.6%).
Average prices for local authorities are based on a three-month moving average to help remove some of the volatility in the series.
The figures also show the volume of residential sales in Scotland as 5,365 in February 2023, down 16.6% per cent on the original provisional estimate for February 2022.
Chris Kerr, Registers of Scotland registration and policy director commented: "Scotland's annual house price inflation has generally been slowing since the recent peak of 13.4% in the 12 months to April 2022, and has shown slower growth than the average for the UK since July 2022.
"This is the fifth consecutive month where the volume of residential sales has decreased, following a general downward trend in volumes over the past 18 months."