- Price growth in Scotland leaves England and Wales standing
- New peak average prices in ten of 32 local authorities
- 28 of 32 local authorities see prices rise on annual basis
- 7.3% price growth in Edinburgh accounts for over half the monthly increase
Annual price growth in Scotland accelerated to 7.3% in February – almost double the next fastest region in Britain and six times the rate for England and Wales as a whole. And while prices for February in England and Wales rose just 0.1% month-on-month, in Scotland they were up 2.3%.
Some of the growth is down to the low transaction numbers typically seen in February, coupled with a relatively small number of high value sales in Edinburgh, pushing monthly price growth to 7.3% in the city, which accounted for over half the monthly increase in Scotland. Nevertheless, the market remains strong with a large majority of local authorities seeing growth in the last year.
Overall, the price in Scotland is up more than £12,000 annually to leave the average property worth £182,936.
Alan Penman, business development manager for Walker Fraser Steele, one of Scotland’s oldest firms of chartered surveyors and part of the LSL group of companies, said: “Scotland’s market grows ever stronger as the rest of the UK weakens. But, while price growth might be returning to the levels of the last housing boom, transactions remain well down. The attractiveness of Scotland’s centres such as Edinburgh is matched only by the tightness of property supply there.”
Download the Scottish House Price Index (February 2018) here.