We note with interest the latest Office for National Statistics house price index.

The figures summarise the 12 month percentage change to June 2015 and the headline figure shows UK house prices increased by 5.7% in the year to June 2015, up from 5.6% in the year to May 2015. At a regional level, house price annual inflation was -0.6% in Scotland.

While this slight decrease may raise eyebrows in Scotland given recent proclamations and newspaper headlines of booming prices, it reinforces a message we have been consistently expressing ??? the Scottish market is very much in a steady as she goes position.

The differential in price change between the Scottish and UK figures shouldn?۪t lead to a race for the panic buttons. Instead, it merely illustrates that the overall Scottish market is still very much a stagnant market and will continue to experience spikes and dips throughout the year.

From our experience in terms of house prices, our advice is always to set a compelling asking price in conjunction with a realistic home report value, and the opportunity of realising a favourable price within a sensible time scale increases.

Looking ahead, we have seen a busy summer period in July and August and as a result would expect these figures to pick up towards the end of the year. In summary, our view is that this year will very much reflect a reversal of last year ??? which had a strong start and sluggish finish. We are confident that the backend of 2015 will be an encouraging one for Scotland?۪s housing market.