RoS launches single official UK house price index

The 2010 National Statistician’s Review of Official House Price Statistics recommended the production of a “single definitive house price index produced by the official statistics producer community”.

Addressing this recommendation, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Land Registry for England and Wales (Land Registry), RoS and Land & Property Services Northern Ireland (LPSNI) have worked together to develop the UK HPI.

RoS’ director of commercial services, Kenny Crawford, said: “This publication is the culmination of a new collaborative approach to the delivery of more accurate property figures for the UK by the key producers of official house price statistics in the UK and we are delighted to be offering it as part of our suite of statistical publications.

RoS has been producing quarterly house price statistics for Scotland for many years and, following user consultation, will continue to publish these quarterly statistics in parallel with the monthly UK HPI. We also intend to publish tables on our website to allow comparison between these quarterly statistics and the HPI Scotland as more data becomes available.

The HPI Scotland shows that the average price of a house in Scotland in April was £138,445. This compares to a UK average of £208,974.”

The average price of a residential property in April 2016 Scotland increased by 3.3 per cent when compared with the previous year and by 1.5 per cent when compared with the previous month.

The biggest price change over the last year was in East Renfrewshire where the average price increased by 6.1 per cent to £200,718.

Residential sales volumes in Scotland in February 2016 were 5,507, an increase of 7.7 per cent on the previous year. The City of Edinburgh showed the biggest volume of sales in February with 664 sales.

The average price for a new build property is £188,627, an increase of 6.8 per cent on the previous year, while the average price for an existing resold property is £136,335, an increase of 3.1 per cent on the previous year.

The average price for a property purchased by a former owner occupier is £165,349, an increase of 4.8 per cent on the previous year. The average price for property purchased by a first time buyer is £112,374, an increase of 1.6 per cent on the previous year.

The average price for a cash sale is £127,180, an increase of 2.1 per cent on the previous year, while the average price for property purchased with a mortgage is £143,667, also an increase of 3.8 per cent on the previous year.