London’s property millionaires’ club grows
The number of property millionaires in London has soared by more than 10,000 in the last year alone, research has revealed.
Estate agents Savills said there are now 730,390 homes valued at £1 million or more across Great Britain. The data, put together from a range of sources including HM Revenue and Customs, suggests almost one in 10 London homes is now worth £1 million or more - equivalent to 1 in every 40 homes, or 2.5% of all housing stock.
Over the past three years, the number of £1 million-plus homes has increased by over forty percent the property firm indicated. However this is slightly down from a peak of over 760,000 homes in September 2022 during the height of the pandemic induced property boom.
“The number of property millionaires across Great Britain has shot up over the past three years, as a consequence a booming post-lockdown property market, with people placing a greater value than ever on their home and lifestyle,” Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills said.
“While we expect the top end of the market to be less affected by higher interest rates and cost of living pressures than the mainstream, it is not entirely immune to them. This suggests 2022 will represent a high water market for £1m+ homes for a few years at least.”
Areas with the biggest increase in property millionaires
More than half (53%) of £1 million homes are now located outside of London. This is the highest proportion in at least the past 15 years, Savills noted.
Number of £1m+ homes across Great Britain. Source: Savills
The South West saw the number of homes above £1 million double (+104%) since 2019, helped by a vast increase in sales over £1 million in North Somerset (+163%), East Devon (+94%) and Cornwall (+86%) over the past year. Homes valued at £1 million or above now make up 2% of all housing stock in this market. However, Wales saw the largest percentage increase in property millionaires – up +146% on 2019. But, this region still accounts for the smallest percentage of one million pound properties (0.3%), accounting for just one in every 293 homes.
The boroughs with the biggest percentage increase in such homes were not the areas with the highest number of pricey properties. In fact, there were more £1 million homes in London’s two most expensive boroughs — Westminster, and Kensington and Chelsea — than in the entire north of England and Scotland combined. For instance, in London, Hillingdon saw a 95 percent rise in seven-figure residences from 186 homes in 2019/20 up to 363 in 2021/22. The outer west London borough was followed by Redbridge, where the number of million-pound-plus homes rose 94% to 449.
Nonetheless, the number of million-pound properties in both the super prime London boroughs swelled by a third. London boroughs with fewer than 200 sales of £1 million homes have been excluded from the data and table below. These are Barking & Dagenham, Bexley, the City of London, Newham and Waltham Forest.
Although London had the largest number of new £1 million homes, according to Savills, it was still the slowest growing region in percentage terms. This meant that for the first time since the financial crisis of 2008, London had less than half of the UK’s million-pound homes.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are based on industry reports and related news stories and are for informational purposes only . SSIL does not guarantee the accuracy, legality, completeness, reliability of the information and or for that of subsequent links and shall not be held responsible for any action taken based on the published information.