Property Market Improves In Seven Cities

With the housing market showing signs of recovery, a new study has revealed that there has been significant increases in the number of properties sold across Scotland's seven cities.

The report, published by Registers of Scotland, covers all residential sales in the calendar years of 2012 and 2013 – including those that did not involve a mortgage. It found that Edinburgh recorded the largest percentage increase in the number of property sales with a rise of 24.9% in 2013, compared to the previous year. The capital also overtook Glasgow as the city with the highest sales volume, with 9,412 residential house sales recorded.


The lowest increase was found to be in Dundee, with a 13.9% in transactions.

Elsewhere, price change was found to be more mixed. In 2013, prices rose by 1.4% across Scotland, with the housing market in Aberdeen remaining resilient with an increase of 6.8%. This made the average property price in the area £194,291.

The largest percentage fall in price was found in Stirling with a drop of 4.1% with an average price of £144,352.

Semi-detached and terraced properties in Aberdeen both showed an increase in average house price in 2013, with the largest rise being in terraced properties (11.3%), with detached properties falling by 5.2%. All property types showed an increase in sales volumes across Scotland, with terraced housing properties showing the biggest increase in sales volumes up 15.2%.

Registers of Scotland's Head of Data, Hugh Welsh, said: "This is further confirmation of increased activity in the Scottish property market, and reinforces the findings of our most recent quarterly house price statistics.

"There's been a lot of activity in the property market across all seven cities, but particularly in the capital where the number of sales increased by 24.9 per cent on the previous year."

(JP)