The latest House Price Index (HPI) revealed that the typical property value for the month was £180,485, a drop from a peak of £183,876 in November.

Despite the decline, the average house price was still £18,000 higher than in 2020. House prices rose by 11.2% over the year to December, with the highest rate of growth coming in Fife, where properties soared by 16% to £166,836.

The figures highlighted that house prices in Scotland grew faster than the UK annual rate of 10.8% in the year to December 2021.

The volume of residential sales in Scotland in October 2021 was 10,228, a decrease of 16.2% on the original provisional estimate for October 2020 and an increase of 8.2% on October 2019. This compares with decreases of 66.0% in England and 45.7% in Wales to October 2021, whilst sales volumes increased 62.6% in Northern Ireland analysing Quarter 3 2021, relative to the same quarter in the previous year.

Kenny Crawford, business development director at Registers of Scotland, said: “The average price of a property in Scotland in December was £180,485, slightly lower than £183,876 reported in November 2021, which was the highest reported for any month since January 2004, from when Scottish data for the UK HPI was first available.

“Over the year as a whole, from November 2020 to the end of October 2021, the number of transactions has picked up following the reductions caused by COVID-19 measures and cumulatively is now 67% higher than the previous year. Figures in the current year to date are also 15.5% higher than pre-COVID-19 figures from November 2018 to October 2019.”

In Scotland, Detached properties showed the biggest increase out of all property types, rising by 16.7% in the year to December 2021 to £330,461. Flatted properties showed the smallest increase, rising by 5.9% in the year to December 2021 to £122,189.

Average price increases were recorded in all 32 local authorities, when comparing prices with the previous year. The largest increase was in Fife where the average price increased by 16.0% to £166,836. The smallest increase was recorded in City of Aberdeen, where the average price increased by 3.5% to £148,251.

In December 2021, the highest-priced area to purchase a property was City of Edinburgh, where the average price was £312,459. In contrast, the lowest-priced area to purchase a property was East Ayrshire, where the average price was £121,488.