The Registers of Scotland’s Property Market Report 2020-21 shows that the average price of a residential property in Scotland in 2020-21 was £194,100, up 6.7% on 2019-20 and up 25% compared with the pre-financial crash average price of £154,813 in 2007-08.

The value of Scottish residential property sales in the financial year 2020-21 was £18.5 billion, a decrease of only 0.2% compared to 2019-20.

Since 2003-04, the start of RoS house price data, the average residential property price in Scotland has increased by 92%.

The volume of residential property sales fell 6.5% from 102,053 sales in 2019-20 to 95,428 sales in 2020-21 and although volumes were 36% higher than the low of 70,334 sales in 2011-12 the 2020-21 figure was the lowest volume when compared with the previous three financial years.

“The introduction of Covid-19 measures resulted in a substantial drop in sales being submitted to Registers of Scotland for registration in the first quarter of 2020-21, followed by some higher-than-average increases in the latter quarters of the year as lockdown measures were relaxed,” said RoS.

“The sales volume remains 36 per cent below the pre-financial crisis level peak of 149,944 sales in 2006-07 …

“This marked the first year there was a decrease when compared with the previous year since 2011-12.

“The residential sales market value increased every year from 2012-13 to 2019-20, but remains 19 per cent below the pre-financial crisis level peak in 2007-08 (£22.9 billion).”

The report also looks at the non-residential market.

The total market value of non-residential sales in 2020-21 was £2.8 billion. Commercial sales accounted for 71% of this total, with the remainder from sales of forestry, agriculture and land.

The non-residential market was also impacted by Covid-19 measures.

In particular, there was an adverse impact on the market value of the commercial sales market, with market values in 2020-21 being lower in every month than the market values in 2019-20, except for March 2020-21.

RoS Accountable Officer Janet Egdell said: “The combined market value of the residential and non-residential markets in 2020-21 was £21.3 billion (residential £18.5 billion and non-residential £2.8 billion), 4.9 per cent lower than the previous year 2019-20.

“The combined market value remains 30 per cent lower than the peak of the market in 2007-08 (£30.4 billion), but 24 percent higher than 2003-04 (17.2 billion).”