House prices in the North East of Scotland have fallen slightly in the 3^rd quarter of 2015.

This is partly due to local economic conditions, but a downturn after Q2 is not unexpected, with the majority of sales taking place in the spring and summer months.

Taking a look at the report, based on data provided by the Aberdeen Solicitors Property Centre to the Centre for Real Estate Research, University of Aberdeen, we can see that it was not just the North East that saw a dip – in fact, while we saw quarterly house prices fall 0.8%, Scotland as a whole saw prices fall 1.3%.

 Table 1: Changes in house prices for different areas

When we turn to the volume of sales, you can see that there were 1,706 sales in Q3 2015, a decrease of 8.7% from the previous quarter and a decrease of 15.1% compared with the volume of sales a year ago (Q3 2014).

You may notice in Table 2 that this is mainly occurring in the upper price range in Aberdeen, while flats have seen a 6.9% dip, compared to the 12.8% reduction in the sale of detached properties.

 Table 2: Volume of sales by dwelling type for the current and previous quarter

In the market for flats there is still good activity and the cost of borrowing remains low. It does seem the case that some people are ‘sitting tight’ in their current properties, waiting for spring next year. Overall, given the issues being encountered in the local economy, the local housing market is showing an encouraging degree of resilience.