As anyone who has looked into buying a new property recently may have noticed, house prices in Scotland can seem daunting.
The average price of a property in Scotland can differ depending on the area you’re looking at.
To help track how much an average home might cost you across Scotland, we’ve put together a house price tracker to take some of the stress off.
Our interactive charts and maps will be updated when new data becomes available. The data comes from the Registers of Scotland, who are the government body responsible for keeping registers of land and property transactions and ownership.
What are the average house prices in Scotland?
The average house price in Scotland reached a record high in October 2022. However the latest data shows a fall in house prices towards the end of last year, and it is speculated that prices may continue to fall in 2023 due to the knock on effects of increased interest rates on mortgage affordability.
To keep up to date with the housing market in 2023, and to what extent different regions experience or avoid a crash, our tracker breaks down the latest data by local authority area. Use the tool below to build your own chart and compare average property prices across several areas.
House prices fell in Aberdeen in 2022 but rose in Aberdeenshire. Both areas have experienced lower levels of growth than other areas of Scotland since the start of the pandemic due to uncertainty over the region’s reliance on the oil and gas industry.
Have a particular area in mind you’re looking at moving to? The below map shows the average price by neighbourhood data from across Scotland.
The data provided in the map below is subject to lag and is based on 2019 house prices but it will be updated whenever new data becomes available.
Do house prices mean it’s unaffordable for you to buy?
Use our handy map below to see if your household can afford to buy the average house in each local authority in Scotland.
The data uses a calculation of mortgage based on 4.5 times the household income with areas marked as affordable, or somewhere you would be priced out of, depending on your household salary.
Some areas are marked with maybe, which means that it may be affordable to some households within the bracket. The higher up the band your household income is, the more likely you are to be able to afford the “maybe” areas.
The map does not take into account deposits for new houses, which also affects how much you are able to borrow. The analysis makes several assumptions and is intended as a guide and not to be treated as financial advice.
Got that perfect Scottish house in mind? Our just for fun chart below shows how many average bottles of Irn Bru you’d have to forgo to be able to afford a 10% deposit, based on your area.
The kind of numbers involved in house buying can be scary and hard to visualise. Our aim with this chart is to help our readers contextualise the data.
Our analysis is based on the average house price in each area, a 10% deposit and a 500ml bottle of Scotland’s other national drink costing £1.15.
Are house prices in Scotland rising?
House prices in Scotland have almost continually been on the rise since 1968.
Although house prices started low in the 60s and 70s, they have skyrocketed since, despite the average annual wage not increasing in relation.
The biggest drop was recorded between May 2008 and February 2009, and has fluctuated slightly across the months since, although has mainly kept climbing.
With uncertainty in the housing market due to inflation and high interest rates, some people think that house prices will fall in 2023. Our chart puts any house price decreases into context of the 2008 financial crash.
Prices are trending upwards across the board as people in Scotland struggle to get on the housing ladder and also move up the housing ladder.
The chart below shows a breakdown of house prices by Scottish local authority and by property type. Use the buttons to change the property types and build your own chart by selecting relevant local authorities from the dropdown.
The DC Thomson data team aim to make data more accessible to our communities. If you have any feedback or suggestions of future projects you can get in touch with us at datateam@dctmedia.co.uk