Aberdeen homeowners have seen the value of their home increase by 9.2 per cent over the past year, our latest house price report has found.

Based on data we provided to the Centre for Real Estate Research at the University of Aberdeen, the house price index for Aberdeen exceeded the Scottish and UK indices at the end of 2014.

There was a small decrease in house prices in the end of Q4, but that is not unusual for the time of year. The dip itself was fairly insignificant at 1.5 per cent.

Our figures also show a decrease in the volume of sales from Q4 2014 compared to Q3: with 1,840 sales being made, this was an 8.4 per cent decrease compared to the previous quarter, and a decrease of 0.4 per cent compared with the volume of sales a year ago (2013 Q4).

In total, however, the volume of sales in 2014 has more or less matched the volume of sales in 2013 and both years have shown a return to levels of activity not seen since before the banking crisis.

Anecdotally, most solicitors selling property in this area felt that the fourth quarter was slightly busier than in recent years and the start of this year has seen fairly prompt recovery in insertions to the Centre.

It is possible that the higher end of the market may be more active before the current regime of stamp duty land tax changes to land and buildings transaction tax. It will be interesting to see how the first quarter of our local market behaves.  

You can read the full housing report for Q4 2014, as well as quarterly reports and annual reports dating back to 2006, in the information section of our website.