Growth in UK ‘property millionaires’

There are five times as many houses worth £1m or more in Britain than there were a decade ago.

Figures released on Thursday from Santander Mortgages revealed there are 131,996 residential homes valued at over a million pounds in the UK today, compared to 26,776 in the year 2000.

While the credit crunch led to over 43,000 homes losing value and falling below £1m between 2008 and 2009, the statistics now show a recovery in the market for million pound properties. Over the past year alone, the number of properties valued at £1m or more rose by around 29,000, boosting the number of property millionaires - the owners of these properties - close to the early 2008 peak when there were 147,000 of them.

While prices have retreated since mid-2007, over the past decade property still increased by more than 100 per cent in value according to the Halifax house price index, with the average UK house price moving from £84,453 in 2000 to £168,202 in May 2010.

Around 78 per cent of the million pound homes that appeared in the Santander Mortgages report are in greater London, with the capital’s south west post code claiming a third of the nation’s millionaire properties. Other postcodes occupying the top ten places, include towns such as Guildford, Kingston upon Thames and Hemel Hempstead. London’s south east area alone has showed a staggering 23-fold increase in the number of property millionaires in the past decade.

Nigel Lewis, property analyst at PrimeLocation.com said: “Million-pound-plus property prices have recovered incredibly quickly since the dark days of mid-2008 when the market experienced significant price reductions. Our research shows that the number of million pound homes for sale has risen considerably over the past year and the number of people looking to buy them has also jumped by 20 per cent - so it’s no wonder that the prime property market is recovering so fast.”

Phil Cliff, director of mortgages at Santander, said: “For many of us our ‘home is our castle’ and in recent years we’ve often viewed our home as a key investment too.”

In the Santander Mortgages table, Edinburgh is the first non-South East area in the league, coming in at 11th place with 1,665 million-pound-plus dwellings. Warrington is in 20th place in the table, with 1,066 property millionaires, and Bournemouth is 22nd with 870.