Scots house prices resume year-on-year upward trend in March
Scottish house prices resumed their year-on-year growth pattern in March this year, according to the latest figures from Registers of Scotland.
March show a rise of 3.3% compared with March 2018, to an average of £149,461. Data published last month for February showed a slight fall of 0.2% in the average price paid compared with February 2018, after continuous rises in the equivalent comparison each month since April 2016. The UK average price for March was up 1.4% to £226,798.
Provisional sales figures for January showed a healthy 10.3% jump in the volume of transactions to 6,516, compared with the same data for January 2018, despite a 1.7% decrease in England and a rise of only 0.6% in Wales. The Northern Ireland figure for Q1 of 2019 was 6.0% down on 2018. The previous month's figures saw a larger decrease in Scotland year on year than in the rest of the UK.
Prices rose in 22 of Scotland's 32 local authority areas, with the biggest increases in Midlothian (12.2%) and Perth & Kinross (11.6%), while the largest decreases were recorded in Aberdeen City (7.0%) and Aberdeenshire (6.1%). Local authority estimates are based on a three month moving average to reduce volatility.