News.Scotland.Org

Scotland, Jan 5: According to the new figure the house prices in Scotland is far greater than the UK average. The average price of the property in Scotland is rated at £151,178 this marked an increase of 1.8 percent on the third quarter of 2007 as against the average quarterly rise of 1 per cent in the UK. As according to the National Building Society the annual change was calculated as 6.9 percent.

The average cost of property in London is rated at £303,739 and is considered as the costliest followed by outer metropolitan areas at £259,160, Northern Ireland at £224,816. Homes located in the north of England are considered as the cheapest at an average of £133,202 followed by Scotland at £151,178, Yorkshire and Humberside.

A Bank of England report revealed that the number of home loans has witnessed a three year low during the month of November. In total 83,000 new home loans were approved for people for the purpose of buying property in November, this was the lowest figure since January 2005. It is for the fifth consecutive month and the loan rates for the houses have fallen.

According to Vicky Redwood, an economist at Global Insight: “The decrease in the number of housing loans is a bad news the number of loan approvals have dropped from 89,000 to 83,000 in November it is the lowest level in the past three years. The Bank of England’s survey shows that the bankers expect to tighten the allocation of loans further in first quarter and it is expected to pave the way for further reduction in the approvals.”

While commenting on this the UK and European economist at Global Insight, Howard Archer said: “The reduction in the number of housing loans during November shed light on to the fact that housing market activity is on a descending mode this is because of the increase in the house prices and the tightening lending practices as a result of credit crunch.”

He also expressed his hope that the house prices will decrease at least by 3 percent during the year 2008.

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