Property boom continued in November: official figures

House prices in Scotland continued their boom in November, showing an 8.6% average rise over the same month in 2019, according to the latest provisional figures reported by Registers of Scotland.

The UK house price index showed that prices also rose by 0.9% compared with October 2020. The annual increase outstripped the UK increase of 7.6%; the monthly increase across the UK was 1.2%.

Year-on-year average price increases were recorded in all but one of the 32 Scottish local authority areas. The largest increase (15.6%) was in East Ayrshire, followed by Inverclyde (12.4%) and West Dunbartonshire (11.6%). Aberdeen City prices fell by an average 3.4%; Aberdeenshire rose by 2.0%.

The average price across Scotland in November 2020 was £165,703, compared with a UK average of £249,633. However area averages ranged from £110,073 in East Ayrshire to £287,239 in Edinburgh City.

Provisional figures for residential sales in Scotland for September 2020 show a total of 10,168 sales, an increase of 17.8% on the comparable figure for September 2019. This compares with decreases of 13.3% in England, 28.8% in Wales, and 22.9% in Northern Ireland (quarter 3 figure).

Accountable officer Janet Egdell said the Scottish figures showed a high volume of transactions in September, "catching up on some of the reduction in activity in the market in the previous months".