Compared with the previous month, the latest provisional statistics from the UK House Price Index revealed that house prices in Scotland increased by 0.7% 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%.

The UK average house price was £285,009 which was an annual increase of 4.1% on March 2022. Compared with the previous month, UK house prices decreased by 1.2% 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%.

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

Commenting on the house price and volume figures in Scotland, Kenny Crawford, Registers of Scotland business development director said: “Average house prices for Scotland increased by 3.0% 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% 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% in the year to March 2023, to £339,717. Flatted properties had the smallest increase in average house price, increasing by 1.7% in the year to March 2023, to £124,952.

Average prices for local authorities are based on a 3-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% to £316,643. The largest decrease was recorded in City of Aberdeen, where the average price decreased by 6.9% 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.