It is harder to move in to a countryside home than its urban equivalent, the research has shown.
Housing remains relatively unaffordable in rural areas, the Bank of Scotland has said.
A new report from the mortgage lender, the Scottish Rural Housing Review, shows that the cost of the average countryside home in Scotland is 21 percent above its equivalent in other areas in the UK. Moreover, first time buyers were found to be largely shut out of the rural market: just one in five people moving into these homes have not owned property before, down from 31 percent in urban areas.
Moreover, the average price of a rural home was revealed to be 13 percent higher than elsewhere. A disparity in provision of social housing was also noted: with the cheap homes making up five percent more of total urban stock (15 percent to ten percent).
Suren Thiru, economist at Bank of Scotland, added: "Housing in rural areas is less affordable than in urban areas due to a combination of higher average prices and lower average earnings."
He added: "The difficulties for home buyers in rural locations are particularly acute among first time buyers and are exacerbated by relatively low levels of social housing provision."
The bank used Office of National Statistics data from ten "rural" local Scottish authorities for its research.
