Scottish property: House prices up £4.3% in a year

Average house prices in Scotland have risen 4.3% in the last year, according to new figures.

Average house prices are up. Picture: PA

The cost of a property in August 2016 was £144,561 on average, up from £138,564 in that month in 2015.

There was also a 1.3% increase on the previous month, according to the UK House Price Index Scotland for August 2016.

On the mainland, the biggest price increase over the last year was in East Renfrewshire, where the average price increased by 12.7% to £219,511.

Aberdeen saw the biggest decrease, with prices dropping by 8.7% to £175,922.

There were 8,620 residential sales across Scotland in June 2016, down 7.4% on the previous year but up 20.9% on the previous month.

Kenny Crawford, Registers of Scotland’s director of commercial services, said: “We still may be seeing some impact from changes in land and buildings transaction tax that came into effect on April 1 2016 for additional dwellings, such as second homes and buy-to-let properties.

“These changes are likely to have contributed to the significant increase in volumes seen in March and to the subsequent lower volumes that have followed in April, May and June.”

Edinburgh saw the most sales in June 2016 with 1,053, followed by Glasgow City (1,003), South Lanarkshire (568), Fife (515) and North Lanarkshire (448).

Figures for the later months are not yet available.

Across Scotland, all property types showed a rise in average price when compared with the previous year, with semi-detached properties showing the biggest increase of 5.6% to £151,917.

The average price for a property purchased by a former owner-occupier was £173,859 - an increase of 4.7% on the previous year.

Meanwhile, the average price for property purchased by a first-time buyer was £116,383 - an increase of 3.9% on the previous year.

The average price for a cash sale was £132,784 - up 3.8% on the previous year - while the average price for property purchased with a mortgage was £150,020, a yearly increase of 4.6%.

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