HOUSE PRICES have fallen 1.5% in a year, despite sales increasing, according to new figures.
The average price of a residential property in the final quarter of last year was £154,810, down almost £2,500 from the same period of 2011, Registers of Scotland (RoS) said.
The market appeared to be growing in the second quarter of last year when the average price rose to £159,310 but fewer sales in the last three months of last year brought prices down.
Property in some areas did get more expensive between October and December, with prices in Inverclyde rising more than a fifth to £127,410.
A total of 20,355 properties were sold acrossScotland last year, up 2.7% on 2011.
Rhona Mackay, head of commercial services at RoS, said: “The latest figures are not dramatically different compared to the previous year, so there is a bit of a flattening of the market. Compared to large falls in prices a few years ago, the market is reasonably stable but there is still a downward trend.”
East Dunbartonshire is now the most expensive area to buy property, with an average £215,300 price, overtaking Edinburgh where prices fell by an average 5.8% to £212,607.
In the space of a year, prices in Aberdeen went up 5% to £196,175, while the average house price in Glasgow remains at around £130,000.