Scottish house prices continue year-on-year gains

Average house prices in Scotland in March were up 6.7% on the same month in 2017, according to the latest monthly UK House Price Index.

The index, produced by Registers of Scotland in partnership with the Land Registry and other official bodies, shows that the average price of a property in Scotland in March 2018 was £146,009, which was also 0.5% up on the previous month. Year-on-year rises were recorded in 27 of Scotland's 32 local authority areas, exceptions including Aberdeen and Inverclyde where prices fell by 2.1% and 1.4% respectively. Falkirk, West Lothian and Edinburgh each saw rises of 12% or more.

The UK average of £224,144 was up 4.2% year on year, and virtually unchanged when compared to the previous month.

However volume of residential sales in Scotland – the latest figure is for January 2018 – was down 7.4% year on year at 5,909, a similar decline to that seen in Wales, but below the 12% drop seen in England and Northern Ireland (the Irish figure is for quarter 1 of 2018). Only seven areas in Scotland saw a year-on-year rise, significantly in Stirling (up 21%) and East Ayrshire (up 11.3%); Moray, Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire saw declines of between 24% and 33%.

Registers of Scotland business development and information director Kenny Crawford commented: “Average prices have been increasing each month since March 2016, when compared with the same month of the previous year.

“Residential sales volumes decreased in January. The annual decrease of 7.4 per cent when compared with January 2017 in Scotland is in the context of large decreases across the rest of the UK. The cumulative volume of sales for Scotland for the financial year to date – from April 2017 to January 2018 – was 87,097. This is an increase of 5.7 per cent on the equivalent year to date position in the previous financial year 2016/17.”