Edinburgh is Scotland’s most expensive city at £2,492 per square meter compared to the Scottish average of £1,529, new research has found.
Wishaw has the lowest average price per square meter while Dunfermline has recorded the biggest price increase since 2012, according to the research from the Bank of Scotland.
Edinburgh is the only town in Scotland to have an average house price per square metre higher than the British average of £2,260 and the report also shows that there has been a substantial rise in property prices per square metre between southern England and the rest of Britain over the past 20 years.
House prices per square metre have risen by 402% in Greater London and 208% in Edinburgh compared with the increase of 147% across the whole of Scotland.
‘House price per square metre can be a useful measure for house price comparison as it helps to adjust for differences in the size and type of properties between locations,’ said Graham Blair, mortgages director at the Bank of Scotland.
‘Edinburgh and the east coast are more expensive than western and central areas, however we can see a number of notable pockets emerging in the Highlands. There is a clear gap between southern England, particularly London, and the rest of Britain over the past 20 years, a trend that has continued during the last five years,’ he added.
In Edinburgh the price per square meter has which tripled, up by 208%, from £808 to £2,492 in the past 20 years. Aberdeen at £2,029 per square meter is the next most expensive area and then Inverurie £1,884. In total seven areas have an average price above the Scottish average of £1,529.
Wishaw in North Lanarkshire is the least expensive town with an average price at £1,027 per square meter, followed by Glenrothes in Fife at £1,065. Eight of the 10 towns with the lowest prices per square metre are either in central or western Scotland.
In addition to Wishaw in central Scotland, these are Larkhall at £1,071, Irvine £1,075 and Airdrie £1,089. In Western Scotland they are Grennock at £1,128, Alexandria 1,140, Dumfries £1,150) and Kilmarnock £1,158. The two eastern towns with the lowest house prices on a per square metre basis are Glenrothes at £1,065 and Leven £1,109, both in Fife.
Dunfermline in Fife has seen the highest house price growth on a per square metre basis over the last five years from £1,185 per metre square in 2012 to £1,416 in 2017, a rise of 20%, closely followed by Dalkeith at 19%, and then Motherwell, Glasgow and Alloa at 18%.
In Scotland, house prices per square metre have risen by 12% since 2012 from an average of £1,365 to £1,529 in 2017. Greater London has experienced substantially faster growth than elsewhere in Britain, with an average increase of 57%.
Edinburgh, Inverurie, Inverness and Elgin have seen major increases in house prices per square metre in last 20 years. Edinburgh has seen the largest rise since 1997 with an increase of 208%, followed by Inverurie at 188% and then the two Highland towns of Inverness and Elgin at 186% and 184% respectively.
The average price per square metre across Scotland has increased by 147% over the past 20 years from £620 in 1997 to £1,529 in 2017. This however is much lower than the British average increase of 236%.
