House prices in Scotland grow faster than UK average

Comparing with the previous month, house prices in Scotland rose by 1.2 per cent between April 2019 and May 2019.

The UK average house price was £229,431, which was an increase of 1.2 per cent on May in the previous year and an increase of 0.1 per cent on the previous month.

The volume of residential sales in Scotland in March 2019 was 8,255 – an increase of 5.0 per cent on the original provisional estimate for March 2018. This compares with an increase of 0.7 per cent in England and a decrease of 1.2 per cent in Wales and 6.0 per cent in Northern Ireland (Quarter 1 – 2019). From April 2018 to March 2019, the cumulative sales volume in Scotland was 101,009, the same as in the previous financial year (2017-18). The 2018-19 figures are provisional and likely to change.

Registers of Scotland accountable officer, Janet Egdell, said: “Average prices in Scotland continued their upward trend in May, having increased each month since May 2016, when compared with the same month of the previous year. House prices in Scotland were growing faster than the UK annual rate in the year to May 2019. House sales in 2018-19, based on provisional data, were at a similar level to the previous financial year. A long-term view of the Scottish property market can also be found in our recently published Property Market Report.”

Average price increases were recorded in the majority (23) of local authorities when comparing prices with the previous year. The biggest price increases were in North Ayrshire and Stirling where average prices increased by 8.2 per cent to £110,995 and 7.2 per cent to £189,709 respectively.

The largest decreases were recorded in Aberdeen City and South Ayrshire, where average prices fell by 4.4 per cent to £152,686 and 4.1 per cent to £129,413 respectively. Local authority estimates are based on a three-month moving average to reduce volatility.

Edwina de Klee, partner at Edinburgh-based Garrington Property Finders, said:“The gap between between the Scottish and English property markets is becoming a gulf.

“At well over double the annual pace of price growth in England, and the UK as a whole, Scotland’s property market is enjoying a moment in the sun.

“Buyers and sellers are responding in kind, with sales volumes in March rising to 5 per cent above the level seen in March 2018.

“But that flurry of activity, and the steady upward trajectory in prices across the nation as a whole, is masking the intense polarisation of Scotland’s local markets.

“Aberdeen retains its unwanted wooden spoon as the city where prices are falling fastest. At least the 4.4 per cent decline in the year to May is an improvement on the painful 6.2 per cent fall Aberdeen saw in the 12 months to April. Meanwhile at the other end of the scale, prices in North Ayrshire and Stirling are rising at a dizzying pace.

“While England’s average rate of price growth is being dragged down by London’s sharply falling prices, the declines in Aberdeen are being brushed aside by the Scottish market as a whole.

“Across Scotland, buyer demand has strengthened, activity levels are picking up and the traditional Spring Bounce has turned into a Summer surge.”