Property market saw 2019-20 gains despite COVID-19

The Scottish residential property market showed gains over the financial year 2019-20 despite the effects of the coronavirus lockdown during the final month, according to Registers of Scotland's Property Market Report for the year.

Over the year the average property price rose by 1.9% to £182,357 compared with the 2018-19 figure of £179,012, while the value of the market was up by 2.0% to £18.5bn, though the volume of property sales rose by just 0.1% to 101,664. March 2020 saw a fall of 14% in sales registered with RoS compared with March 2019, as the lockdown took effect.

Average prices have risen by 9.0% over five years and by 20.4% over 10 years, while sales volume is up by 9.9% and 41.5% respectively on the same comparisons. Ten years ago the market was affected by the recession following the financial crash; even today the total market value remains 20% below the pre-crash peak reached in 2007-08, though the average price then stood at £154,820.

Detached properties had the largest share of the market, at £6.1bn, due to a higher average price of £271,010, while flats accounted for the largest volume at 36,813 sales. Four out of five sales (79%) had a price between £20,000 and £250,000.

The figures cover all sales between £20,000 and £1m. New builds accounted for 12% of these, at an average price of £258,272, up 3.5% on the previous year.

In addition there were 255 “high value” sales at over £1m (including 36 new builds), the average price being £1.45m. This was an increase of 80 sales and beat the previous peak of 229 sales in 2007-08. Of these, 72% were within the City of Edinburgh, which has taken an increasing proportion of such sales in recent years.

RoS also reports that non-residential sales had a total market value of £3.7bn in 2019-20 (4,156 transactions, down 10% on 2018-19), made up of 81% commercial sales, 6.3% agricultural and 2.4% forestry. There were 750 commercial leases, up 4.6%.

Click here to view the report.