THE average price of a home in Argyll and Bute shows a slight year-on-year increase, according to the latest statistics.

But while prices in the area went up for the third month in a row, the increase in February was considerably smaller than in both January and December.

Figures published by the Registers of Scotland this week state that the average price of a property in Argyll and Bute in February was £127,195, compared to £126,334 12 months previously – a rise of 0.7 per cent.

That’s less than the year-on-year increase in January of four per cent, while in December the increase on the same month in 2015 was 2.1 per cent.

The local authority with the biggest year-on-year price increase in February was East Dunbartonshire (9.4 per cent), while the biggest decrease, in line with recent trends, was in the City of Aberdeen, where prices fell by 9.6 per cent.

The average price of a property in Scotland in February was £138,821 – an increase of 3.1 per cent on February in the previous year, but a fall of 0.6 per cent when compared to the previous month.