There has been a notable rise in the volume of people acquiring their homes outright with numbers of sales registered with a mortgage down by more than a third in a decade, according a fresh Scottish property report from the Registers of Scotland (RoS).

The findings reveal that there was a 36.9% fall in the number of sales being registered with a mortgage, as the average price of a home north of the border increased by 20% over the past 10 years taking the total value of the residential sales market to £148.2bn.

The hike in Scottish property prices meant that there was a 16.9% increase in the volume of residential properties sold for over £1m, according to the RoS Scotland property market report, which details the trends in the land and property market over the decade’s peak years.

Kenny Crawford, RoS’ director of commercial services, said: “The Scottish property market is a significant contributor to the Scottish economy. In 2015-16, the total value of residential sales alone was £16.7bn.

“We’ve also seen an increase in average house prices over the decade, up 19.7 per cent between 2006-07 and 2015-16, from £139,207 to £166,624. This compares to a rise in median gross annual earnings of 22.6 per cent between 2006 and 2015.”