UK House Price Index figures for July 2021

Three key figures for July 2021:

• £177,166
  The average price of a property in Scotland
• 14.6%
  The annual price change of a property in Scotland
• 2.0%
  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 July 2021 reflects transactions that took place up to the end of July. Some caution is needed when interpreting the latest annual price increases given the lower than usual numbers of transactions in July 2020.

The latest provisional statistics from the UK HPI show that the average price of a property in Scotland in July 2021 was £177,166, an increase of 14.6 per cent on July 2020.

Comparing with the previous month, house prices in Scotland increased by 2.0 per cent between June 2021 and July 2021.

The UK average house price was £255,535, which was an increase of 8.0 per cent on July 2020 and a decrease of 3.7 per cent on the previous month.

The volume of residential sales in Scotland in May 2021 was 8,379, an increase of 171.6 per cent on the original provisional estimate for May 2020. This compares with increases of 2.3 per cent in England, 13.7 per cent in Wales, and 41.8 per cent in Northern Ireland (Quarter 1 – 2021 compared with the same quarter in the previous year).

The volume of sales in May 2020 (both original provisional estimates and the final revised volume figures) is the lowest number of residential sales transactions recorded in the month of May in this time series. This is due to the introduction of measures to reduce the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) from mid-March 2020 onwards, in which non-essential construction activity stopped, and home buyers were advised to delay moving to a new home where possible, until the lockdown restrictions began to ease towards the end of July 2020.

Commenting on the house price figures in Scotland, Business Development Director Kenny Crawford said:

“Property prices continued their trend upwards in July. The average price of a property in Scotland of £177,166 is the highest reported for any month since January 2004, from when Scottish data for the UK HPI was first available.

“Over the year as a whole from June 2020 to the end of May 2021, the number of transactions has picked up following the reductions caused by COVID-19 measures and cumulatively is now 17 per cent higher than the previous year.”

In Scotland, Semi-detached properties showed the largest increase in average house price, rising by 16.3 per cent in the year to July 2021 to £187,181, although this figure may have been affected by the lower than usual numbers of transactions recorded in July 2020. Flatted properties showed the smallest increase, rising by 12.5 per cent in the year to July 2021 to £124,517.

Average price increases were recorded in all 32 local authorities, when comparing prices with the previous year. The largest increase was in Inverclyde where the average price increased by 29.0 per cent to £119,168. The smallest increase was recorded in Stirling, where the average price increased by 4.9 per cent to £218,602.

In July 2021, the highest-priced area to purchase a property was City of Edinburgh, where the average price was £309,227. In contrast, the lowest-priced area to purchase a property was East Ayrshire, where the average price was £109,985.

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 and between years 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 continues to be felt.

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 May 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 May 2021 because June 2021 and July 2021 figures are likely to change when more recent sales applications data are received.↩
3. Comparison between the latest provisional estimate for May 2021 with the original provisional estimate for May 2020 as recorded before final figures available. The final revised volume of sales in May 2020 was 3,336 an annual increase of 151.2 per cent in May 2021. However, the sales volume for May 2021 is still subject to revision.↩
4. Shetland islands increased by 41.7 per cent and Orkney Islands increased by 37.2 per cent. Local authority areas where sales volumes within the 12 months to May 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.↩