Newly-released figures by Registers of Scotland (RoS) reveal house sales in Scotland have reached a six-year high.

In 2014, a total of 93,875 sales took place – the highest annual figure since 2008, and an increase of 11.6% compared to the previous year.

The price of the sales exceeded £15.3bn, RoS added.

The statistics cover all residential sales between £20,000 and £1m, including those that did not involve a mortgage.

The report found that Moray experienced the largest annual growth in sales, with an increase of 24.4%, while the City of Edinburgh has the largest volume of sales. In 2014, 11,092 sales were carried out, an increase of 13.7% from the previous year. Meanwhile, both Aberdeen City and Dumfries and Galloway recorded a fall in house sales, at 4.0% and 2.4%, respectively.

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Last year, the average price of a residential property rose by 4.3% to £163,563. The council area with the highest average price was East Renfrewshire (£228,963), an increase of 5.6% on 2013; while Aberdeenshire and the City of Edinburgh recorded averages of £226,919 and £226,551, a surge of 4.9% and 5.2% respectively.

However, it was Renfrewshire that experienced the largest percentage increase over the year, jumping 11.8% from the previous year to £129,075.

Midlothian, on the other hand, witnessed a 2.1% decline in average house prices (£173,855), while prices in South Ayrshire fell 1.6% to £146,823.

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 2014, the market totalled £15.4 billion, an increase of 16.4% on the previous year.

"The City of Edinburgh property market represented over 16.3% of this figure, sitting at £2.5 billion. This is significantly larger than the next biggest property market, Glasgow, with 8.9% of the market at £1.4 billion."

(JP/IT)