Scottish Housing

Scottish house prices rose at a faster rate than the UK as a whole in the year to December, according to new figures. Official house sales data showed the average Scottish home cost £148,783 in the final month of 2017 - a year-on-year increase of 7.7%. In December, the most expensive area to live in was Edinburgh, where the cost of an average house rose year-on-year by 10%, to £248,000.

Social rented households in Scotland spent an average of 24% of their net income on housing costs between 2013/14 and 2015/16, according to the Social Tenants in Scotland report. This compares to 25% for private renters, 9% for owners with a mortgage and 3% for those who own their home outright. The report found just under a third (32%) of social rented households in Scotland spent more than 30% of their net income on housing costs over the same period, 

The average weekly rent for social housing in Scotland was £74.44 in 2016/17, up 2.1% on the previous year. Housing association rents averaged £80.28 a week, 16% higher than local authority rents of £69.20. An estimated 1.17 million people lived in social rented homes, including housing associations and local authority housing, in 2016. There were 594,458 units of socially rented homes in 2016, a 0.1% drop of 594 from the previous year.