Total number of £1m homes now nearly 400,000

Nearly 93,000 more home-owners have become “property millionaires” in Britain over the last year, research from a website has found.

The total number of homes valued at £1 million plus by Zoopla.co.uk this month has grown by almost one third (31%) compared with a year ago to reach 393,127.

Zoopla said that continued strong demand for prime residential property throughout 2013 has created 92,985 more property millionaires in Britain over the past 12 months.

Three-fifths (61%) of million pound plus properties were found to be in London. Property prices in the English capital have consistently surged ahead of the rest of the country this year, prompting some concerns that the market there is overheating.

The Government recently announced plans for non-UK residents to pay capital gains tax (CGT) on property sales from April 2015. Much of the strong demand in the London market has been put down to wealthy overseas buyers looking for a safe haven to put their cash.

The exclusive borough of Kensington and Chelsea was named by Zoopla as home to the highest number of property millionaires totalling 41,393. 

Outside London, 21,028 more property millionaires were created in the South East during the past year, bringing the total to 82,614. The highest proportion of property millionaires outside the capital can be found in the Surrey postcode area of GU25 covering Virginia Water, where almost one third (32%) of homes were found to be worth over £1 million.

On a regional level, Wales was found to be home to the fewest property millionaires in Britain, numbering just over 1,000 in total but still up by one quarter (24%) on 2012.

Lawrence Hall of Zoopla.co.uk said: “While Government schemes such as Help to Buy have concentrated popular attention on the lower rungs of the property ladder this year, there’s been a hive of activity propelling house price gro03 wth at the top-end of the market.”

 

:: Here is the number of property millionaires by region, according to Zoopla.co.uk:

1. London, 239,703

2. South East England, 82,614 

3. East of England, 28,128 

4. South West England, 13,960 

5. North West England, 7,043 

6. West Midlands, 5,418 

7. Scotland, 8,161 

8. East Midlands, 2,667 

9. North East England, 2,574 

10. Yorkshire and the Humber, 1,814 

11. Wales, 1,043 

:: Total 393,127 

£1m plus homes holding their value

The number of prime properties on the market that have seen a reduction in their asking price has fallen to its lowest level in three years, according to research from property website PrimeLocation.com.

The proportion of prime properties (defined as those worth over £1 million) that are currently for sale and have had their asking price discounted from its original level has fallen to 18%, down from 27% one year ago and at its lowest level since summer 2010. The average price reduction on prime properties across the UK now stands at 8.7%.

The commuter town of Rickmansworth in Buckinghamshire tops the list of places where the highest proportion of million pound homes are currently being offered at less than the original asking price with almost half (48%) of prime properties reduced in order to find buyers. By contrast, only 4% of prime properties on the market in Guernsey have been reduced in price.

The smallest price reductions on £1m+ properties on offer in the market are to be found in Walton-on-Thames (4.3%) followed closely by Guildford (4.2%) showing that homeowners in these areas are currently less inclined to reduce their asking prices to attract buyers. At the other end of the scale, prime homeowners in Bath and Edinburgh are less bullish and are reducing their expectations more than anywhere else in the UK currently.  

Lawrence Hall of PrimeLocation.com, comments: “The prime property market is a law unto itself and one which has largely defied gravity in recent years, even during the recession. However, even the wealthiest areas have seen deep discounts in the past few years.  But the drop over the past 12 months in the number of prime properties with reduced asking prices has been a significant one, indicating that at the top end of the market sellers are generally feeling a lot more bullish now than they were this time last year.”