House prices held firm in October, official data show

Average house prices across Scotland remained firm in October, according to the latest provisional statistics from the UK House Price Index released by Registers of Scotland.

The average price of a property in Scotland was £194,874, an increase of 8.5% on October 2021, and of 1.1% on September 2022, reversing the previous month's 0.9% decline.

Across the UK, the average price was £296,422, up by 12.6% on October 2021 and 0.3% on September 2022.

Average year-on-year price increases were recorded in 31 out of 32 local authority areas. The largest increase (21.3%) was in Argyll & Bute, followed by West Lothian (14.2%) and East Dunbartonshire (11.9%). The only decrease was recorded in City of Aberdeen, where the average price decreased by 3.0%. The smallest increases were in Clackmannanshire (4.0%) and East Renfrewshire (4.5%).

Detached properties continued to show the biggest increase out of all property types, rising by 10.7% over the year, while flats showed the smallest increase, rising by 5.5% on average.

Provisional figures also show the volume of residential sales in Scotland in August 2022 as 9,310, down 4.4% on the original provisional estimate for August 2021.

Kenny Crawford, Registers of Scotland business development director commented: "The annual increase has been in excess of 5% in every month since October 2020. In comparison, in the 12 months to October 2020, the annual increase only exceeded 3% on one occasion.

"Transaction volumes appear to be stabilising at levels similar to the pre-pandemic period. Although transactions are down compared to 2021, the number of transactions over the first eight months of 2022 are similar to the first eight months of 2019."