Scottish housing market resilient as transactions hit decade high

This is above the 0.9% recorded in the same month for England and Wales. Only the South West of England at 5.3%, the North West at 3.9% and Wales at 3.6%, are growing more strongly.

Sales in the eight months to the end of August were up 5.4% on the same period in 2016 at 66,786 – the highest number in close to a decade.

Average prices in Glasgow reached a new peak in November of £157,353 and are up 9.9% annually. Combined with solid transaction levels, the city now accounts for more than a quarter (27%) of the increase in values in Scotland over the last year.

Add in Fife, where prices are up 4.8%, Perth and Kinross (7.7%), Renfrewshire (7.9%) and West Lothian (7.5%), and these top five authorities account for more than half (54%) of the increase.

Prices in Stirling are up 9%, the biggest increase on the mainland after Glasgow. Offshore, where low sales volumes make pricing volatile, the Shetland Islands has seen growth of 10.1% and average prices in the Orkneys are up 13.3%.

The latter also set a new peak average price in the month (£157,311), as did East Renfrewshire, where they edged up 0.8% over the month to £264,510. The cost of an average house there is now 5.1% higher than a year ago and it remains the most expensive area in Scotland.

Only five of Scotland’s 32 local authority areas have seen average house prices fall over the last twelve months: Clackmannanshire (down 8.3%), Argyll and Bute (3.8%), Aberdeenshire (2.4%), Angus (1.1%) and Dundee City (0.4%).

Christine Campbell, Your Move managing director in Scotland, said: “The market in Scotland looks strong compared to almost anywhere else in the UK. A lot of that is down to the resilience of the market in Glasgow, but the performance has been good across the board. 2017 proved to be a positive year for the market.”