Property prices keep on rising

House prices continued their general upward trend in Scotland in February and rose 3.1% on the previous year, new figures show.

The average price of a property in Scotland in February was £138,821, according to the latest publication of the monthly UK House Price Index Scotland.

This was an increase of 3.1% on February 2016 but a decrease of 0.6% when compared to the previous month.

Across the UK as a whole, the average price increased to £217,502, up 5.8% on February 2016 and 0.6% higher when compared to the previous month.

There were 8,361 residential sales in Scotland in December 2016, up 6.5% on the same month of 2015 but down 2.7% on November. This compares with annual decreases in sales volumes of 19% in England, 6.9% in Wales and 17.6% in Northern Ireland.

Kenny Crawford, Registers of Scotland director of commercial services, said: “Average prices continue to hold steady. February 2017 has continued the general upward trend seen in 2016 when every month – with the exception of March – showed an increase in average price when compared with the same month of the previous year.”

The top five local authorities in terms of sales volumes were city of Edinburgh (1,002 sales), Glasgow city (977), Fife (570), South Lanarkshire (479) and North Lanarkshire (454).

The average price of a property in Scotland in February was £138,821.