Name: Carr Berman Crichton
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We’re delighted to bring you the Carr Berman Crichton January 2021 House Price Index Reports. The report is sderived from the Scottish House Price Index issued every month by the Registers of Scotland. It contains accurate date based on actual registrations. Unlike lender’s property market reports, it includes properties where no mortgage is involved. There is always a slight lag of a month or so because it depends of completed registrations of property in the Land Register. We believe that it’s the most accurate report on the health of the market and that’s despite that slight lag.

The figures we’ll report on today are house price values from November 2020 registrations and September 2020 sales volumes. We’ll focus, firstly, on the figures for the whole of Scotland and then look at the local authority areas where most of our clients buy and sell their homes.

Average Price

The above chart shows the average price of properties in the local authority areas across Scotland in November 2020.

The average price of a house in Scotland in November 2020 stood at £165,793. This is an increase of 8.6% against the same month in 2019. The average price in November 2019 was £152,528. 2020 has seen house prices increase month on month following the lockdown between March and June and it is clear that there has much demand for property on the market.

Under supply of properties for sale has meant those properties on the market have been achieving a premium with many selling above asking price and Home Report value.

Apart from the City of Aberdeen local authority area, all other local authority areas saw an increase in the average price with East Ayrshire being the largest rise with an increase of 15.6% over November 2019.

The chart opposite shows the percentage increase in the average price across all of Scotland’s local authority areas. You’ll notice that the only decrease is in the North East in the City of Aberdeen local authority area.

Chart showing the percentage increase in average property prices in Scotland

Early indications from a local point of view indicate that the market continues to be busy with price increases being driven by a lack of supply of quality houses for sale. We are looking to see the supply of houses on the open market increase as spring approaches. An increased supply of available property should help even out the market.

Average price by property type

All property types saw an increase in November against the corresponding month in 2019.

Detached property prices increased by 9.8% from £265,578 to £288,422

Semi-detached property prices increased by 9% from £159,703 to £174,064.

Terraced properties saw the biggest rise of 10%, increasing from £127,109 to £139,874.

Finally, Flatted properties saw an increase of 6.8%, rising from £109,654 to £117,109.

Sales Volumes

Sales volumes is always a good indicator of the health of the market and gives an indication of whether the market is getting busier when compared to the previous year of getting quieter. That means sales volumes always lag the average price to ensure that they are completely reliable. There is also a revisions policy in place at the Registers of Scotland. Accordinly, as more properties clear the registration process, the figures provided for the month will increase.

The figures contained in this report relate to the sales volumes for September 2020, the latest month for which these figures are available.

These show that the volume of properties sold in Scotland in September 2020 rose to 10,168 from 8,826 in September 2019. This is an increase of 15.2%. In fact volumes of sales increased throughout Scotland in September 2020 when compared to the same month in 2019 apart from the Shetland Island where the number of sales fell from 31 to 21.

Buyer Status

We now also have data available on the average price paid by first-time buyers and home movers.

First time buyers paid an average price of £133,677 in November 2020.This was an increase of 8.3% over the November 2019 figure and 0.7% above the average price paid in October 2020.

Home movers paid an average price of £199,109. This was an increase of 9% against the figure in November 2019 and an increase of 1.1% on the October 2020 figure.