The average price of a home in Scotland in December 2020 was £162,983, an increase of 8.4% on December 2019, according to the latest provisional statistics from the UK House Price Index.

However, house prices in Scotland fell 1.2% between November 2020 and December 2020.

The Registers of Scotland (RoS) said the volume of residential sales in Scotland in October 2020 was 12,205, an increase of 31.9% on the original provisional estimate for October 2019.

In December 2020, the highest-priced area to buy a property was City of Edinburgh, where the average price was £288,899.

The lowest-priced area to purchase a property was Inverclyde, where the average price was £107,752.

Registers of Scotland Accountable Officer Janet Egdell said: “The annual price change of a property in Scotland of 8.4% from December 2019 to December 2020 is the largest increase reported in the UK HPI since March 2015.

“While this increase may have been influenced by the unusual pattern of transactions resulting from Covid-19 restrictions, we will track to see whether this is a trend that continues in the coming months.

“The volume of transactions in October 2020 was high, catching up on some of the reduction in activity in the market in the previous months.

“However, the overall sales volumes in the year to October 2020 were significantly lower than in the previous 12 month period reducing by 20.2 per cent over the year.”

In Scotland, detached properties showed the largest increase, rising 9.9% in the year to December 2020 to an average of £285,415.

Flats showed the smallest increase, rising 7.3% in the year to December 2020 to an average of £115,600.

Average price increases were recorded in the majority (29) of local authorities, when comparing prices with the previous year.

The largest increase was in East Ayrshire where the average price increased by 17.9% to £111,306.