UK House Price Index figures for May 2023

Published: 19 July 2023

Three key figures for May 2023:

  • £193,000
    The average price of a property in Scotland
  • 3.2%
    The annual price change of a property in Scotland
  • 3.0%
    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 May 2023 reflects transactions that took place up to the end of May.

The latest provisional statistics from the UK HPI show that the average price of a property in Scotland in May 2023 was £193,000 an increase of 3.2% on May 2022.

Comparing with the previous month, house prices in Scotland increased by 3.0% between April 2023 and May 2023 on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, whilst on a seasonally adjusted basis prices increased by 2.2%.

Economic commentary is available here.

The UK average house price was £286,000 which was an annual increase of 1.9% on May 2022.  Comparing with the previous month, UK house prices remained the same between April 2023 and May 2023 on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, whilst on a seasonally adjusted basis the decrease in house prices is equal to 0.4%.

The volume of residential sales in Scotland in March 2023  was 7,992, a decrease of 0.6% on the original provisional estimate for March 2022.

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

"Average house prices for Scotland increased by 3.2% in the 12 months to May 2023. While this annual inflation rate in May was above the recent low of 0.4% in January, house price inflation has generally been trending down since it reached a peak of 13.4% in April 2022.

In May Scotland's annual house price inflation was higher than the average for the UK for the first time since June 2022."

In Scotland, all property types showed an increase in average price when compared to May 2022. Detached properties showed the biggest increase out of all property types, rising by 4.1% in the year to May 2023, to £345,000. Semi-detached houses showed the lowest annual percentage change, increasing by 1.9% in the year to May 2023, to £202,000.

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 20 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 16.1% to £ 339,000. The largest decrease was recorded in West Dunbartonshire, where the average price decreased by 4.0% to £130,000. 


Map chart of HPI Percentage May 2023

In May 2023, the highest-priced area to purchase a property was East Lothian, where the average price was £ 339,000. In contrast, the lowest-priced area to purchase a property was Inverclyde, where the average price was £ 123,000.

Map chart of HPI Price May 2023

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 was particularly important in the year from March 2020, as measures to counter COVID-19 affected the volume of transactions within the market, making trends between months and between years more volatile than usual.

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 October 2018.
  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. Economic commentary is available here.
  6. 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.
  7. Information on individual property purchase prices is available for free via our ScotLIS service.
  8. 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. Prices shown here are rounded to the nearest £1,000.
  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 March 2023 because April and May 2023 figures are likely to change when more recent sales applications data are received.
  3. Shetland Islands and Orkney Islands decreased by 7.1% and 5.5% respectively. Local authority areas where sales volumes within the 12 months to March 2023 represent less than 1.0% of all Scotland sales volume are excluded from the figures used for highlighting purposes due to the volatility of the market in these areas.

Media contact

Andy Richardson
PR manager
andy.richardson@ros.gov.uk
Telephone: 0131 200 3994 | Mobile: 07975 618126