Average price of Scottish home rises 4.3 per cent – RoS

The current average price north of the border compares to a UK average of £218,964, which was an increase of 8.4 per cent over the year and an increase of 1.3 per cent when compared to the previous month.

Registers of Scotland’s director of commercial services, Kenny Crawford, said: “The volume of residential sales in Scotland in June 2016 was 8,620 – a decrease of 7.4 per cent on the previous year, but up 20.9 per cent on last month.

“We still may be seeing some impact from changes in Land and Buildings Transaction Tax that came into effect on 1 April 2016 for additional dwellings, such as second homes and buy-to-let properties. These changes are likely to have contributed to the significant increase in volumes seen in March and to the subsequent lower volumes that have followed in April, May and June.”

The top five local authorities in terms of sales volumes were the City of Edinburgh (1,053 sales), Glasgow City (1,003 sales), South Lanarkshire (568 sales) Fife (515 sales), and North Lanarkshire (448 sales).

The biggest price increase over the last year was in East Renfrewshire where the average price increased by 12.7 per cent to £219,511.

The biggest decrease was again in the City of Aberdeen, where prices fell by 8.7 per cent to £175,922.

Mr Crawford added: “In the five months since the House Price Index was first published in June 2016, the City of Aberdeen has shown each month the biggest annual percentage decrease in average price of all of Scotland’s local authority areas. The average price in the City of Aberdeen in August was £175,922, compared to £192,744 in August last year.

“Overall, average prices in the area have fallen consistently over the last 15 months when comparing monthly average price figures with the figures for the same month in the previous year.”

Across Scotland, all property types showed an increase in average price when compared with the previous year, with semi-detached properties showing the biggest increase of 5.6 per cent to £151,917.

The average price for a property purchased by a former owner occupier was £173,859 – an increase of 4.7 per cent on the previous year. The average price for property purchased by a first time buyer was £116,383 – an increase of 3.9 per cent on the previous year.

The average price for a cash sale was £132,784 – an increase of 3.8 per cent on the previous year, while the average price for property purchased with a mortgage was £150,020 – an increase of 4.6 per cent on the previous year.