Boost for properties

Home values go up by 3%

North Lanarkshire’s property market has been given a boost as it was revealed the average house price rose by almost three per cent in the past year.

The latest available figures show the value of the average house has gone up from £101,314 to £104,366.

That is a rise of 2.9 per cent in the government statistics released by Registers of Scotland as part of their involvement in the new UK house price index, which is published every month.

Across Scotland as a whole, the average property was worth £146,354 — up 3.9 per cent from last year’s figure of £140,885.

The latest monthly report shows there were 561 sales in North Lanarkshire (up 22.2 per cent from 459 in the same period last year) and another 674 in South Lanarkshire (up 18.7 per cent from 568).

There were 10,473 sales across Scotland, up 19.3 per cent from 8782.

The top five local authorities in terms of sales volumes were Glasgow (1224), Edinburgh ( 1216), Fife ( 704), South Lanarkshire (674) and North Lanarkshire (561).

Charles Keegan, Registers of Scotland registration and transformation director, said: “Average prices in Scotland continued their upward trend in August with an increase of 3.9 per cent when compared to August 2016.

“Average prices have been steadily increasing each month since March 2016, when compared with the same month of the previous year.”

The report also revealed that the average price for a new-build property in Scotland is £204,499, an increase of 9.2 per cent on the previous year, while the average price for an existing resold property is £143,765 — an increase of 3.5 per cent on the previous year.

The average price for a property purchased by a former owner/occupier is £171,611 — an increase of 1.5 per cent on the previous year.

The average price for property purchased by a first-time buyer is £120,824 — an increase of 6.2 per cent on the previous year.

The average price for a cash sale is £135,802 – an increase of 4.7 per cent on the previous year; while the average price for properties purchased with a mortgage is £151,197, an increase of 3.5 per cent on the previous year.

Average prices have been steadily rising