UK House Price Index figures for April 2021

Three key figures for April 2021:

• £161,401
  The average price of a property in Scotland
• 6.3%
  The annual price change of a property in Scotland
• -4.1%
  The monthly price change of a property in Scotland

Estimates for the most recent months are provisional and are likely to be updated as more data is included. The house price index for April 2021 reflects transactions that took place up to the end of April. Some caution is needed when interpreting the latest annual price increases given the low numbers of transactions in April 2020.

Provisional statistics for April

The latest provisional statistics from the UK HPI show that the average price of a property in Scotland in April 2021 was £161,401, an increase of 6.3 per cent on April 2020.

Comparing with the previous month, house prices in Scotland decreased by 4.1 per cent between March 2021 and April 2021.

The UK average house price was £250,772 which was an increase of 8.9 per cent on April 2020 and a decrease of 1.9 per cent on the previous month.

The volume of residential sales in Scotland in February 2021 was 7,198, an increase of 25.5 per cent on the original provisional estimate for February 2020. This compares with increases of 31.7 per cent in England, 2.8 per cent in Wales, and 41.8 per cent in Northern Ireland (Quarter 1 – 2021 compared with the same quarter in the previous year).

Commenting on the house price figures in Scotland, Accountable Officer Janet Egdell said:

“Over the year as a whole from April 2020 to end February 2021, volumes have picked up and cumulatively are now around 88% of levels in the previous year.

"Average house prices have remained strong over the last year, showing increases in every month from April 2020 to April 2021 when compared to the previous year, with the exception of July 2020. ”

In Scotland, flatted properties showed the largest increase in average house price, rising by 7.8 per cent in the year to April 2021 to £114,328, although this figure may have been affected by the low numbers of transactions recorded in April 2020. Flats continue to show the smallest increase out of all property types when looking at average price increases between the month of July 2020 (following the end of the first lockdown period) and April 2021. Semi-detached properties showed the smallest increase, rising by 5.3 per cent in the year to April 2021 to £168,537.

Average price increases were recorded in 30 out of the 32 local authorities, when comparing prices with the previous year. The largest increase was in South Ayrshire where the average price increased by 16.7 per cent to £147,222. The largest decrease was recorded in Aberdeen City, where the average price decreased by 0.5 per cent to £138,303.

In April 2021, the highest-priced area to purchase a property was City of Edinburgh, where the average price was £292,447. In contrast, the lowest-priced area to purchase a property was East Ayrshire, where the average price was £105,023.

Further information on HPI Scotland by local authority, property type, first time buyers and cash sales can be found in the latest HPI Scotland publication.

As with other indicators in the housing market, which typically fluctuate from month-to-month, it is important not to put too much weight on one month’s set of house price data. This has been particularly important over recent months, as COVID-19 has affected the volume of transactions within the market, making trends between months more volatile than usual and will continue to be important over the coming months as the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on the housing market and the economy becomes clear.

Notes to editors

1. Registers of Scotland is the public body responsible for compiling and maintaining registers relating to property and other legal documents in Scotland. Registers of Scotland records and safeguards the rights of the individual while providing open access to information on the registers.
2. For the publication schedule for the UK HPI see the calendar of release dates.
3. The statistics have been produced in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The UK House Price Index is a joint publication with our publication partners: HM Land Registry for England and Wales, Land & Property Services Northern Ireland and Office for National Statistics. The UK HPI was designated as National Statistics by the Office for Statistics Regulation on 18 March 2019.
4. Registers of Scotland provides data on residential property sales for the Scotland element of the UK House Price Index. Separate HPI releases are also published by HM Land Registry and Land & Property Services Northern Ireland, which focus on the figures for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland. The Office for National Statistics also publishes a monthly HPI statistical bulletin with commentary on the whole of the UK.
5. Details of all of our property statistics releases and future publication dates are available on our website. A comparison guide comparing the different house price index measures that are published in the UK is also available.
6. Information on individual property purchase prices is available for free via our ScotLIS service.
7. Sign up for our data stats alert service.

Footnotes

1. All average prices reported from the UK HPI are geometric means, which will typically be closer to the median than the arithmetic mean.↩
2. Due to there being a period of 2 to 8 weeks between completion and registration of sales, volume figures based on the month of date of entry are presented up to February 2021 because March 2021 and April 2021 figures are likely to change when more recent sales applications data are received.↩
3. Comparison between the latest provisional estimate for January 2021 with the original provisional estimate for January 2020 as recorded before final figures available. The final revised volume of sales in February 2020 was 5,939 an annual increase of 21.2 per cent in February 2021. However, the sales volume for February 2021 is still subject to revision.↩
4. Orkney Islands increased by 32.1 per cent and Na h-Eileanan Siar decreased by 0.5 per cent. Local authority areas where sales volumes within the 12 months to February 2021 represent less than 1.0 per cent of the all Scotland sales volume are excluded from the figures used for highlighting purposes due to the volatility of the market in these areas.↩