Compared with the previous month, house prices in Scotland increased by 0.7 per cent between February 2023 and March 2023 on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, whilst on a seasonally adjusted basis there was a decrease in house prices of 0.1 per cent.

The UK average house price was £285,009 which was an annual increase of 4.1 per cent on March 2022. Comparing with the previous month, UK house prices decreased by 1.2 per cent between February 2023 and March 2023 on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, whilst on a seasonally adjusted basis the decrease in house prices is equal to 0.9 per cent.

The volume of residential sales in Scotland in January 2023 was 5,791, a decrease of 19.4 per cent per cent on the original provisional estimate for January 2022.

Kenny Crawford, Registers of Scotland business development director said: “Average house prices for Scotland increased by three per cent in the 12 months to March 2023. However, Scotland’s annual house price inflation has generally been slowing since the recent peak of 13.6 per cent in the 12 months to April 2022, and has shown slower growth than the average for the UK since July 2022.”

In Scotland, all property types showed an increase in average price when compared to March 2022. Detached properties showed the biggest increase out of all property types, rising by 4.9 per cent in the year to March 2023, to £339,717. Flatted properties had the smallest increase in average house price, increasing by 1.7 per cent in the year to March 2023, to £124,952.

Average prices for local authorities are based on a three-month moving average to help remove some of the volatility in the series. Increases were recorded in 27 out of 32 local authority areas, when comparing prices with the previous year. The largest increase was in East Lothian where the average price increased by 8.6 per cent to £316,643. The largest decrease was recorded in City of Aberdeen, where the average price decreased by 6.9 per cent to £132,399.

In March 2023, the highest-priced area to purchase a property was City of Edinburgh, where the average price was £324,262. In contrast, the lowest-priced area to purchase a property was Inverclyde, where the average price was £110,265.