House prices rise in May despite interest rates

House prices in Scotland continued to move upwards in May despite recent interest rate rises, according to the latest figures from the UK House Price Index released by Registers of Scotland. 

Provisional figures for May 2023, reflecting transactions that took place up to the end of May, show that the average price of a property in Scotland during the month was £193,000, an increase of 3.2% on May 2022.

Compared with the previous month, prices in Scotland increased by 3.0% on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, and 2.2% on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Across the UK, the average house price was £286,000, up 1.9% on May 2022, and unchanged on April 2023 (0.4% down on a seasonally adjusted basis).

Year-on-year increases were recorded in 20 out of 32 Scottish local authority areas. The largest increase was in East Lothian (16.1%), followed by Inverclyde (12.1%) and Renfrewshire (8.5%). The largest mainland decrease was recorded in West Dunbartonshire (4.0%), followed by City of Aberdeen (3.8%) and Clackmannanshire (3.6%). Average prices for local authority areas are based on a three month moving average to help remove some of the volatility. 

It was also revealed that the provisional volume of residential sales in Scotland in March 2023 was 7,992, a decrease of 0.6% on the original provisional estimate for March 2022.

Kenny Crawford, Registers of Scotland business development director, commented: "While this annual inflation rate in May was above the recent low of 0.4% in January, house price inflation has generally been trending down since it reached a peak of 13.4% in April 2022.

"In May Scotland's annual house price inflation was higher than the average for the UK for the first time since June 2022."