After a couple of slow months, house price growth in Scotland is starting to look prosperous once again, according to a report Friday from Your Move.
House prices rose 5.1% annually in September, up from the annual gains of 3.5% seen in August, marking the highest yearly increase since May, data from the real estate agency showed.
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The changes bring the average Scottish house price to £184,030 (US$236,275), up more than £7,000 since the start of the year and from last September’s average of £175,070.
The price increases far outweigh those seen in England and Wales, where annual growth stands at just 1.1%.
Buoying values is a shortage of stock, experts say.
"Whether it’s the Brexit deadline or not, there is relatively little stock coming onto market. Many potential sellers are deciding to sit tight," said Christine Campbell, director of Your Move Scotland.
"This is unfortunately largely the reason behind creeping house prices, but it is also resulting in low transaction levels. On the properties that are being sold, these are at the very high end and largely focused in Edinburgh," she said in the report.
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Edinburgh, together with Glasgow, account for about a quarter of all housing transactions in Scotland, and good value increases in both cities is helping prop up prices.
In both cities, prices rose 9.6% annually in September to £287,473 in Edinburgh and £166,094 in Glasgow, a new peak for the city.
Edinburgh was boosted by a relatively high number of high-end sales. There were six transactions of properties worth more than £2 million in August and September—compared to only four in the whole of Scotland in 2017.
But for the second month running it was Inverclyde, on the west coast, that saw the largest annual gains, up 12.2%.