House price rise continues unabated

The average price of a property in Scotland reached £180,832 in August 2021, according to the latest provisional statistics from the UK House Price Index.

Compared with the previous month, the average was up by 1.7%, and since August 2020 prices have risen by 16.9% on average.

Registers of Scotland advised that some caution was needed when interpreting the latest annual price increases, given the lower than usual numbers of transactions in August 2020, when the country was still emerging from the first COVID-19 lockdown.

The UK average house price was £264,244, up 10.6% on August 2020 and 2.9% on the previous month.

Average year-on-year price increases were recorded in all 32 local authority areas. The largest increase (29.4%) was in Scottish Borders, followed by Inverclyde (24.4%). The smallest mainland area increase (7.5%) was recorded in City of Aberdeen, followed by Highland (8.2%).

The volume of residential sales in Scotland in June 2021 was 10,763, up from 8,379 in May on original provisional estimates. The June 2020 figure of 4,089 was severely hit by the lockdown.

Registers' business development director Kenny Crawford commented: "Over the year as a whole from July 2020 to the end of June 2021, the number of transactions has picked up following the reductions caused by COVID-19 measures and cumulatively is now 33% higher than the previous year."