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Housing Statistics for Scotland 2007 update
26/02/2008
Updated housing statistics have been released today by Scotland's Chief Statistician.
The on-line Housing Statistics for Scotland information resource includes comprehensive time series data on housing activity in Scotland. The quarterly data series have now been updated to September 2007. Improvements have also been made to the stock by tenure estimates to incorporate more up to date administrative sources and reflect the changes in the private rental sector over the past few years.
Main points include:
- After a fairly consistent increase over the last four year period, the most recent figures for new build starts indicate some degree of fall-off compared to the previous year (from about 5,720 in July-September 2006 to 5,280 in July-September 2007), although it is too soon to tell whether this represents a longer term downward trend. The most recent figures for new build completions confirm the downward trend seen in recent years after an initial increase in 2004-2006 (from about 5,980 in July-September 2006 to 5,390 in July-September 2007), but are in line with previous years
- The numbers of Right to Buy sales by public authorities continue to show a declining trend since the short-lived increase in 2002 prior to the introduction of modernised Right to Buy legislation. The latest figures for July-September 2007 (about 1,700, excluding local authorities with total stock transfers) confirm the consistent decrease, and represent a drop of 11 per cent relative to the period July-September 2006
- The stock by tenure estimates show a growth in private rented stock since 2001 (from about 7 per cent in 2001 to nearly 10 per cent in 2007), while the proportion of owner-occupied stock has levelled out since 2004 at about 65 per cent. The proportion of social rented stock has been declining since the 1980s, and is currently about 25 per cent
Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff.
Housing Statistics in Scotland web tables replace the quarterly Housing Trends in Scotland bulletins and will be updated regularly as new data become available.