Scots house prices up 11.2% in year to May
Scottish house prices continued their double digit annual growth in the year to May 2022, according to the latest provisional statistics from the UK HPI released by Registers of Scotland.
The average price of a property during the month was £187,517, an increase of 11.2% on May 2021. Prices were also up by 1.1% from the previous month, which recorded a 16.2% 12 month rise.
The UK average price was £283,496, up 12.8% on May 2021 and 1.2% on April 2022.
Average year-on-year price increases were recorded in 31 out of 32 local authority areas, when comparing prices with the previous year. The largest mainland increase was in Argyll & Bute (18.7%), followed by Falkirk (18.5%) and East Ayrshire (18.3%). Inverclyde, where the average price decreased by 0.1%, saw the only decline; the next lowest performer was City of Aberdeen (up 2.6%), followed by Highland (up 7.3%).
Detached properties continued to show the biggest price increase out of all property types, rising by 13.6% over the year, compared with 8.2% for flats.
The volume of residential sales in Scotland in March 2022 was 8,041, a decrease of 32.8% on the original provisional estimate for March 2021, when volumes were affected by the ending of the temporary increase of the nil band of land and building transaction tax. This compares with decreases of 44.4% in England and 26.0% in Wales.
Janet Egdell, Registers of Scotland accountable officer, commented: "Average prices for property in Scotland keep on rising and have increased in every month since July 2020 when comparing with the previous year. The annual increase has been in excess of 5% in every month since October 2020. In comparison, in the 12 months to October 2020, the annual increase only exceeded 3% on one occasion.
"Over the year as a whole from April 2021 to the end of March 2022, the number of transactions remained high, 11.7% higher than the previous year, which was affected by COVID-19 measures, including the temporary increase of the zero rate band of land and building transaction tax, and 6.4% higher than the year before (pre-COVID) from April 2019 to March 2020."