The Scottish housing market has continued to recover, according to The latest Scottish House Price Monitor from Lloyds TSB.

Most areas showed home price increases over the past quarter with the average price of a house rising to £160,074 in the three months to 31 January 2010.

The greatest house price rise over the past quarter occurred in Dundee (16.3%), followed by Edinburgh (11.4%), the south west (11.2%) and the south east (10.4%), The north (8.4%) and Aberdeen (7.3%).

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House prices fell in the Central/Fife/Perth/Tayside area (7.6%) and in Glasgow (1.6%).

Year on year prices have fallen by 6.8%.

Professor Donald MacRae, chief economist at Lloyds Banking Group Scotland, said the Scottish housing market is now into recovery.

"The Scottish economy entered recession in quarter three of 2008 and has since recorded five consecutive quarterly falls in output with possibly a sixth quarterly fall yet to come," he said

"However, business surveys point to an exit from recession in early 2010. Consumer confidence has recovered from the low at the end of 2008 but it is still below pre-recession levels."

Professor MacRae said the house price recovery is evident in Scotland based on much reduced levels of activity.

He spoke of the increase in mortgage availability for first-time buyers, while the cost of borrowing remained low for many mortgage holders.

(GK/BMcC)