UK House Price Index figures for December 2023

Three key figures for December 2023:

• £190,000
  The average price of a property in Scotland
• 3.3%
  The annual price change of a property in Scotland
• -0.9%
  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 December 2023 reflects transactions that took place up to the end of December.

The latest provisional statistics from the UK HPI show that the average price of a property in Scotland in December 2023 was £190,000, an increase of 3.3% when compared to December 2022.

Comparing with the previous month, house prices in Scotland decreased by 0.9% on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, whilst on a seasonally adjusted basis there was an increase of 1.0%.

The UK average house price was £285,000 which was an annual decrease of 1.4% on December 2022. Comparing with the previous month, UK house prices increased by 0.1% on a non-seasonally adjusted basis and increased by 0.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis.

The volume of residential sales in Scotland in October 2023 was 7,722. When compared with the first published figures for October 2022 this was an annual decrease of 13.7%.

Commenting on the house price figures in Scotland, a RoS spokesperson said:

“There was an increase of 3.3% (to £190,000) in the average house price for Scotland in the 12 months to December 2023. This compares to a decrease of 1.4% (to £285,000) in average house prices for the UK as a whole.”

In Scotland, detached houses showed the highest annual percentage change out of all property types, increasing by 5.6% in the 12 months to December 2023 to £349,000. Terraced houses showed the lowest annual percentage change, increasing by 1.8% in the 12 months to December 2023 to £160,000.

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 25 out of 32 local authority areas, when comparing prices with the previous year. The largest increase was in East Renfrewshire where the average price increased by 8.8% to £310,000. The largest decrease was recorded in Dumfries and Galloway, where the average price decreased by 6.9% to £156,000.

In December 2023, the highest-priced area to purchase a property was City of Edinburgh, where the average price was £338,000. In contrast, the lowest-priced area to purchase a property was East Ayrshire, where the average price was £125,000.

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.

Notes to editors

1. From 20 December 2023’s publication, a change was made to how property transactions for Great Britain with a missing Acorn classification are used in the regression model. This methodology improvement increases UK coherence and improves the quality of UK HPI statistics. More information is available in the UK HPI Quality and Methodology Information and in the Acorn quality assurance information.
2. 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.
3. For the publication schedule for the UK HPI see the calendar of release dates.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Economic commentary is available here.
7. 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.
8. Information on individual property purchase prices is available for free via our ScotLIS service.
9. 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. The final revised volume of sales in October 2022 was 9,184, an annual decrease of 15.9% in October 2023. However, the sales volume for October 2023 is still subject to revision. The amount of time between the sale of a property and the registration of this information varies. It typically ranges between 2 weeks and 2 months but can be longer. Volume figures for the most recent 2 months are not yet at a reliable level for reporting, so they are not included in the report. Published transactions for recent months will increase as later registered transactions are incorporated into the index.↩
3. Orkney Islands, Na h-Eileanan Siar and Shetland Islands are not considered when highlighting which local authorities have experienced the highest/lowest increase, due to the low numbers of sales transactions in these local authorities which can lead to volatility in the series.↩