There was a rise in the average price of a property in Scotland in October 2016, taking the average price to £143,131, the latest UK House Price Index (UK HPI) has revealed. This is an increase of 4% over the previous year, and an increase of 1% compared to September 2016.

Across the UK as a whole, the average property price reached £216,674, which is an increase of 6.9% over the year and an increase of 0.1% when compared to the previous month.

Steady Growth in Average Prices

“The average price of a residential property in Scotland continues to show steady growth, with month-on-month increases in every month this year apart from February and August,” commented Registers of Scotland director of commercial services, Kenny Crawford. “This is a significant change from last year when there were decreases month-on-month in six out of the 12 months.”

“The volume of residential sales in Scotland in August 2016 was 8,468 – a decrease of 2.8% on the previous year and down 7.0% on last month,” he added. “This compares with annual decreases in sales volumes of 20.3% in England, 11.6% in Wales and 10.7% in Northern Ireland.”

Glasgow Overtakes Edinburgh

For only the third time in the past 12 months, the local authority of Glasgow City overtook the City of Edinburgh in terms of sales volume. In total, Glasgow saw 1,031 sales, which was closely followed by City of Edinburgh (1,020 sales), Fife (564 sales), South Lanarkshire (520 sales) and North Lanarkshire (415 sales).

The City of Aberdeen once again saw the biggest fall in average prices, with prices dropping 8.7% to £172,870. At the other end of the scale, East Renfrewshire experienced the biggest average price increase, with prices rising by 17.7% on average to £222,532.

New Build Homes

Scotland’s Chief Statistician has also recently released figures relating to the Scottish housing market, this time looking specifically at the availability of new build homes.

The figures show that there were 15,991 new build homes completed in the 12 months to June 2016, an increase of 591 homes, or 4%, on the 15,400 homes completed in the previous year.

There were apparently increases in the number of new build completions over the year to end June 2016 for private-led new builds (up by 537 homes or 5%), housing association new builds (up by 46 homes or 2%), and local authority new builds (up by eight homes or 1%), when compared to the previous year.

In total, there were 16,450 new build starts over the year to end June 2016, a decrease of 681 homes, or 4%, on the 17,131 starts in the previous year. There were increases in the number of housing association approvals (up by 418 homes or 16%) and local authority starts (up by 334 homes or 26%), whilst private-led new build starts decreased by 1,433 homes (11%), when compared to the previous year.

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