A report providing a 10-year overview of the Scottish property market has been published by Registers of Scotland (RoS).

With the last of Scotland’s 33 registration counties having switched from the deeds-based General Register of Sasines to the map-based Land Register in April 2013, RoS has now been able to review the market trends over the last decade. Crucially, by covering 2004 to 2014, the report details the trends during the property ‘boom’ through to the recession, providing an insight into the Scottish economy as it continues to recover.

While the 28-page publication is thorough, covering the residential, commercial, city, high value and mortgage markets, as well as providing an overview of house type, the key findings are listed as follows:

• Nationally, residential house prices grew steadily between 2004 and 2007, with fairly stable prices for the remainder of the 10-year period.
• Residential house price averages increased by 36.9% over the decade. The average price in 2004-05 was £115,056, while in 2013-14 it was £157,476. The average price over the financial year 2013-14 was the highest in the decade.
• The highest quarterly average price of the decade occurred in the second quarter of 2010-11. At that time, the average price for a residential property in Scotland was £163,309. The lowest quarterly average price of the decade was £108,237, which occurred in the first quarter of 2004-05.
• The average prices of all residential property types have increased significantly since 2004. Flat dwellings have represented the largest share of the market, making up 40.0% of all residential property sales over the last decade.
• Between 2004 and 2014, the number of residential properties sold for over a million pounds has more than doubled. In Scotland’s seven cities, volumes are now at their highest level for five years.
• In terms of volumes, the height of the market was in the second quarter of 2007-08, with 42,493 residential sales applications. The lowest volume of sales was 11,787 in the fourth quarter of 2008-09.
• Over the decade, residential sales volumes decreased by 32.3%, from 129,276 in 2004-05 to 87,475 in 2013-14. Volumes in 2013-14 are the highest since 2007-08 and are up by 19.8% when compared to 2012-13. The final three quarters of 2013-14 all showed volume increases in excess of 20% compared with the same periods of the previous year.
• The number of sales being registered with a mortgage in 2013-14 fell by 46.3% when compared with 2004-05. This is also down by 53.0% on the height of the market in 2006-07.
• Title coverage in Scotland, via the registration of properties in the Land Register, now stands at 57.4%. This represents almost 26% of the land mass in Scotland. The Land Register county of Renfrew has the highest coverage with 76.1% of titles being registered, while Ross and Cromarty has the lowest at 36.7%.

In her introduction to the report, Sheenagh Adams, Keeper of the Registers of Scotland wrote:

‘It’s been an interesting decade for the Scottish property market, which is now showing real signs of recovery since the economic downturn in 2008.’

The RoS 10 Year Property Market Report, can be accessed here (pdf).

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