Comparing with the previous month, house prices in Scotland decreased by 2.6% between January 2023 and February 2023 on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, whilst on a seasonally adjusted basis the decrease in house prices is equal to 0.3%.

The UK average house price was £287,506 which was an annual increase of 5.5% on February 2022. Comparing with the previous month, UK house prices decreased by 1.0% between January 2023 and February 2023 on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, whilst on a seasonally adjusted basis the decrease in house prices is equal to 0.3%.

The volume of residential sales in Scotland in December 2022 was 7,735, a decrease of 12.2% on the original provisional estimate for December 2021.

Kenny Crawford, Registers of Scotland business development director, said: “Average house prices for Scotland increased by 1% in the 12 months to February 2023. Scotland’s annual house price inflation has generally been slowing since the recent peak of 13.8% in the 12 months to April 2022, and has shown slower growth than the average for the UK since July 2022.’’

“The volume of transactions for calendar year 2022 were very similar to the pre-pandemic period in 2019.”

In Scotland, detached properties showed the biggest increase out of all property types, rising by 2% in the year to February 2023, to £324,742. Flatted properties were the only property type to show a fall in their average house price, falling by 0.5% in the year to February 2023, to £123,098.

Average prices for Local Authorities are based on a three-month moving average to help remove some of the volatility in the series. Increases were recorded in 27 out of 32 local authority areas, when comparing prices with the previous year. The largest increase was in Moray where the average price increased by 10.1% to £188,242. The largest decrease was recorded in City of Aberdeen, where the average price decreased by 6.6% to £131,603.

In February 2023, the highest-priced area to purchase a property was City of Edinburgh, where the average price was £319,723. In contrast, the lowest-priced area to purchase a property was Inverclyde, where the average price was £115,299.