PROPERTY prices in Scotland's oil boom city have almost doubled during the last 10 years despite the turbulence felt during the economic downturn of 2007, a wide-ranging report has found.
A study by Registers of Scotland of the property market over the last decade found the value of a home in Aberdeen grew by 98 per cent since 2004, while prices in surrounding towns and villages of Aberdeenshire rose by 86 per cent.
The growth in property prices in the north-east demonstrates the effect the fossil fuel industry has on the Scottish economy and the pull that the Granite City has exuded on the workforce, which has pushed up demand for property.
Nationwide, residential house prices grew steadily between 2004 and 2007, with the report showing that the average house price increased by 36 per cent.
However, the property market in Glasgow was revealed to be lagging behind the rest of the country with growth of just nine per cent recorded during the last 10 years.
Michael Luck, managing director at Slater Hogg and Howison/Countrywide said the modest increases noted in Glasgow and some nearby areas were down to an uneven spread of desirable properties in different areas.
He said: "The trouble with these reports is that they are based on statistics and averages, and the percentage increase recorded in Glasgow is not applicable across the board.
"Property values in parts of the east end have declined since 2004, but if you were to look at Bearsden, Newlands, Newton Mearns and the west end they will have increased by far more than the average.
"Since last year we have seen a definite recovery in the property market take hold, but it is not across the board."
Andrew Perratt, director at Savills, said: "Over the years demand in the housing market has vastly outstripped supply, pushing up prices on all types of properties.
"This has not been seen elsewhere in Scotland where some areas have been hotter than others. At the moment we are seeing lots of activity in core such as Newtown in Edinburgh or Glasgow's west end, and that recovery is slowly beginning to push into tertiary areas, but is not established yet."
Across the country, over the decade, the number of residential sales decreased by 32.3 per cent, from 129,276 in 2004-05 to 87,475 in 2013-14.
However, transactions last year rose to their highest level since 2007-08, up by 19.8 per cent when compared to the year before.
The final three quarters of 2013-14 all showed volume increases in excess of 20 per cent compared with the same periods of the previous year. All the date contained in the report was taken from the RoS Land Registry.
RoS director of commercial services Kenny Crawford said: "The wealth of statistical data available to Registers of Scotland is reflected in this 10 Year Property Market Report.
"It's been an interesting decade for the Scottish property market, which is now showing real signs of recovery since the economic downturn in 2008.
"During the course of the 10 years covered by this report, there was an overall drop of 7.4 per cent in total sales values. Despite this, there is evidence that the market is improving, as the year-on-year value of total residential sales grew by 22.2 per cent to £13.8 billion.
"This is the highest total sales value since the height of the market in 2007-08, when the value of residential sales was £23.2 billion, before the downturn in 2008-09."
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