House prices surge again in July
Scottish house price growth continued unabated in July, according to the latest provisional figures from the UK House Price Index, reported by Registers of Scotland.
The figures show that the average price of a property in Scotland in July 2021 was £177,166, an increase of 2.0% on June, and 14.6% on July 2020 – though it is stated that some caution is needed with the annual increases given the lower than usual numbers of transactions in July 2020.
The UK average house price was £255,535, an increase of 8.0% on July 2020 and a decrease of 3.7% on the previous month (when the stamp duty holiday south of the border came to an end).
Average year-on-year price increases were recorded in all 32 local authority areas, ranging from 4.9% in Stirling and 5.7% in City of Aberdeen, to 21.5% in Scottish Borders and 29.0% in Inverclyde. Orkney and Shetland, where the small number of transactions can distort figures more, saw increases of 37.2% and 41.7% respectively.
The provisional volume of residential sales in Scotland in May 2021 was 8,379, compared with 7,007 in April and 11,968 in March.
Registers of Scotland's business development director Kenny Crawford commented: "Property prices continued their trend upwards in July. The average price of a property in Scotland of £177,166 is the highest reported for any month since January 2004, from when Scottish data for the UK HPI was first available.
"Over the year as a whole from June 2020 to the end of May 2021, the number of transactions has picked up following the reductions caused by COVID-19 measures, and cumulatively is now 17% higher than the previous year."