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Changes to the Registers of Scotland Quarterly House Price Statistics Release

Posted: 6th December 2016

This is to advise you of some planned changes in relation to how Registers of Scotland (RoS) quarterly statistics will be presented from January 2017 onwards. We will continue to produce most of the existing Excel data as is currently produced, but plan to cease the production of the quarterly report and statistical news release.

Following the introduction of the monthly House Price Index (HPI) in June of this year, RoS now publishes monthly news releases highlighting the key findings of the HPI Scotland. This is in addition to our existing quarterly house price statistical news release and report. Due to the differences in methodologies used in the HPI and in the RoS quarterly statistics (please see our comparison document), the absolute values of the average house prices quoted in the quarterly statistics are higher than the averages in the HPI Scotland, although both follow similar trends over time. These two different sets of figures have the potential to cause confusion for the media and the public, albeit that these results are equally valid for their own purposes.

Consultation during the development of the HPI indicated that users were keen for us to continue issuing the quarterly statistics so that they could access a consistent time series of volumes and simple average values, and we will continue to do so.

However, given the potential confusion of having two sets of different news releases and reports, we have taken the decision to now stop publishing the quarterly house price statistical news release and statistical report. The core time series data will continue to be published on the RoS website and updated according to the existing publication timetable, and you can still receive notification of this via our data stats alert service. The monthly HPI will now become our key house price statistics news release and report.

The quarterly data will be available via our quarterly statistics time series. The time series will now contain the following data:

  • Latest quarter summary (containing tables 1, 2, 3 and 4 from the current report)
  • Average summary
  • Volumes summary
  • Value summary
  • Median summary
  • Residential sales volumes by price bracket

With the exception of the latest quarter summary, this data will be available from 2003.

We propose to cease reproducing tables 5-17 from the existing statistical report. These tables contain average and median volumes and values broken down by house type and local authority area, and indications are that these tables are not frequently used. If you use this table on a regular basis, please notify us by 23 December 2016, explaining their value to you.

If you have any questions about these changes, please contact:

Ailsa Robertson

Data team manager

Email: ailsa.robertson@ros.gov.uk

Tel: 0141 306 1541

Mobile: 07789 920 746

registers-of-scotland

 

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