THE number of homes changing hands in Scotland has hit a ten-year high, according to a new report.
Transactions in the housing market rose by more than 5 per cent last year to reach 66,786, the highest number in close to a decade.
Meanwhile, house prices are rising faster than other parts of the UK, and have increased by more than £6,000 on average since 2016.
Estate agents say the house market north of the border remains strong and has not undergone dips seen in England, where house price growth has been sluggish at 0.9 per cent.
Only the South West of England at 5.3 per cent, the North West at 3.9 per cent and Wales at 3.6 per cent outperformed Scotland, according to the latest Your Move House Price Index.
House price growth has been strongest in Glasgow, where average prices reached a new peak in November of £157,353 - up almost ten per cent on the year before.
Scotland's largest city now accounts for more than a quarter of the increase in values in Scotland over the last year, the Index said.
READ MORE: Glasgow expected to buck house price trend
Fife, where prices were up 4.8 per cent, Perth and Kinross (7.7 per cent), Renfrewshire (7.9 per cent) and West Lothian (7.5 per cent), also saw strong growth during the year.
Only five of Scotland’s 32 local authority areas saw average house prices fall over the last twelve months - Clackmannanshire (down 8.3 per cent), Argyll and Bute (3.8 per cent), Aberdeenshire (2.4 per cent), Angus (1.1 per cent) and Dundee City (0.4 per cent)
Christine Campbell, Your Move managing director in Scotland, said: “The market in Scotland looks strong compared to almost anywhere else in the UK.
"A lot of that is down to the resilience of the market in Glasgow, but the performance has been good across the board. 2017 proved to be a positive year for the market.”
Alan Penman, business development manager for Walker Fraser Steele, one of Scotland’s oldest firms of chartered surveyors and part of the LSL group of companies, said: “The level of transactions in Scotland is even more notable than the consistently rising prices. If this is maintained, we can look to 2018 with considerable confidence.”
READ MORE: House prices rise by 2 per cent
The Your Move survey followed official statistics from Registers of Scotland (RoS), which also showed that house prices were on the rise.
The more modest report by RoS found that the average cost of a property in Scotland in November was £145,992, an increase of 3.6 per cent on the previous year and 1.1 per cent on October.
Registers of Scotland business development and information director Kenny Crawford said: "Average prices have been steadily increasing each month since March 2016, when compared with the same month of the previous year.
The top five local authorities for sales were the City of Edinburgh with 1,124 sales, Glasgow City with 1,067, Fife with 706, South Lanarkshire with 595 and North Lanarkshire with 451.
Average price increases were recorded in three quarters of all council areas in November, compared with the previous year.
Across Scotland, flat and maisonette properties showed the biggest increase, - rising by 7.2 per cent to £108,881.
The average price of detached properties showed a drop of 3.6 per cent to £235,744.
READ MORE: London remains top for house prices
Meanwhile, UK average prices were £226,071 - an increase of 5.1 per cent on November in the previous year and an increase of 0.1 per cent on the previous month.
There were also annual decreases in sales volumes of 14.8 per cent in England, 6.6 per cent in Wales and 8.6 per cent in Northern Ireland for the third quarter of 2017.
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