Scots house prices ‘show fastest growth in UK’

● Average increase of 6.8% on last year ● Central Belt cities top for sales

Scottish properties have grown in value at a faster rate than the UK average, according to new figures.

The latest publication of the monthly UK House Price Index shows the average price of a property in Scotland in April was £145,734 – an increase of 6.8 per cent on the same month last year.

This compares to a UK average of £220,094, which was an increase of 5.6 per cent compared to April 2016.

Registers of Scotland corporate director John King said: “Average prices this April showed the highest year-onyear increase since March 2015, when the average price increased by 10.4 per cent compared to the year before, and there have been increases in every month since March 2016 when compared with the same month of the previous year.”

0 Prices in April showed the highest year-on-year increase since March 2015

The top five local authorities in terms of sales volumes were Glasgow City with 722 sales, Edinburgh with 562, Fife with 356, North Lanarkshire with 351 and South Lanarkshire with 313.

Eastdunbartonshiresawthe biggest price increase, with values soaring by 11.2 per cent to £202,466.

Aberdeen saw the largest drop, with prices falling 4.3 per cent to £167,630.

Across Scotland, all property types showed an increase in average price in April when compared with the same month last year.

Detached properties showed the biggest increase, rising 8 per cent to £252,492. The average price in April for properties bought by a firsttime buyer was £117,556 - an increase of 5.9 per cent compared to the same month of last year.

Meanwhile, the average price for one purchased by a former owner occupier was £174,848 - an increase of 7.5 per cent on 2016.

The index also reveals details about sale volumes across the country in February.

Scotland’s number of residential sales during that month this year was 5,662.

Mr King added: “Sales volumes figures for February 2017 showed an increase in Scotland of 2.8 per cent when compared with February 2016.

“This is also up by 10.7 per cent when compared with February 2015 and up by 32.1 per cent when compared with February 2013, but down by 1.3 per cent when compared with February 2014.”

The UK House Price Index uses house sales data from HM Land Registry, Registers of Scotland, and Land and Property Services Northern Ireland and is calculated by the Office of National Statistics. It applies a statistical method to the various sources of data on property price and attributes to produce estimates of the change in house prices each period.