SALES of homes in Scotland hit £16.5 billion in 2015, according to new figures.
Registers of Scotland said a total of 97,701 residential property sales took place across the country in 2015, the highest annual figure since 2008 and a 4.5 per cent increase on 2014.
The Scottish Government body said the £16.5 billion value is an 8.2 per cent increase on the previous year.
Kenny Crawford, Registers of Scotland’s director of commercial services, said: “The total value of the residential property market continues to make a significant contribution to the Scottish economy.
“In 2015, the market totalled £16.5 billion, an increase of 8.2 per cent on the previous year.
“The City of Edinburgh property market represented more than 17.2 per cent of this figure, bringing in more than £2.8 billion to the Scottish economy.
“This is significantly larger than the next biggest property market, Glasgow, with 9.8 per cent of the market at £1.6 billion.”
Edinburgh had the largest volume of sales in 2015 - 11,991 - up 8.3 per cent on 2014, which was closely followed by Glasgow, up 12.2 per cent to 11,616.
East Renfrewshire had the largest annual growth in the volume of sales, with a 13.1 per cent increase to 1,861, while Aberdeenshire showed the largest decrease in volumes, down 11.8 per cent to 5,108.
The average price of a residential property in Scotland rose 3.6 per cent in 2015 to £169,402.
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