Average house prices in Aberdeen are on the rise, while they have fallen elsewhere in the north-east, new figures have shown.
Data released by the HM Land Registry has shown that house prices are on the rise after seeing decreases for most of last year.
Meanwhile in Aberdeenshire, prices seem to be on the decrease, compared to the end of the year which had began to see prices creeping up.
House prices in both local authorities however were up compared with the year before.
Figures from the government show that in Aberdeen, in January 2021, the most recent statistics available, the average house price in the city was £146,140, compared to £143,829 in January 2020 – an increase of 1.6%
In Aberdeenshire, in January 2021 the average price for a house was £180,413, compared to £177,268 in January 2020 – a 1.8% rise.
Aberdeen had the slowest growth in prices compared to the year before, while Aberdeenshire was in the second slowest place. Edinburgh had the third slowest with 2%, followed by Angus at 3.9%.
In recent years, the highest prices in Aberdeen were recorded in May 2019 at £153,491, while in Aberdeenshire, the month with the highest house prices on average was July 2019, at £189,794.
Meanwhile, sales volumes have shown that in November, the most recent data available, provisional data shows that there were 395 properties sold in November 2020, compared to 358 in November 2019.
In Aberdeenshire, there were 493 properties sold in November 2020, compared to 399 in November 2019.
However, the HM Land Registry said data is subject to change as more transactions are incorporated into the index.
John MacRae, chairman of property firm Aberdeen Solicitors Property Centre, said that the rise was a welcome development.
He said: “Since lockdown was eased our local market has experienced a period of ‘catch up’.
“This resulted in a reasonably brisk autumn market and we found 44% of properties achieved HR valuation or above.
“Due to supply still being greater than demand we do not yet see anything other than modest improvement in the short term.
“It is, still, a welcome development.
“So far, this year, things look set to continue.”
In Scotland, house prices increased by an average of 6.9% in January compared to the previous year, which is down from an increase of 8.1% in December 2020 compared to December 2019.
A statement from the UK Government, said: “In January 2021, the most expensive area to purchase a property was City of Edinburgh, where the average cost was £280,000. In contrast, the cheapest area to purchase a property was East Ayrshire, where the average cost was £107,000.
“Scotland house prices were growing slower than the UK annual rate of 7.5% in the year to January 2021. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis average house prices in Scotland increased by 1.0% between December 2020 and January 2021, compared with an increase of 2.1% during the same period a year earlier (December 2019 and January 2020).
“On a seasonally adjusted basis, average house prices in Scotland have increased by 0.2% between December 2020 and January 2021.
“House prices increased over the year in all 32 local authority areas. The largest growth was in East Ayrshire (not including Shetland Islands) where prices increased by 13.1% in the year to January 2021 to £107,000.
“The slowest growth for the year ending January 2021 was recorded in City of Aberdeen where average prices increased over the year by 1.6% to £146,000.”
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