Back at the turn of the millennium, a property millionaire was a rare beast outside London’s most expensive postcodes – or the Monopoly board. In 2000, 70% of homes that sold for £1m or more were in the capital. By last year, however, the game had been turned on its head and for the first time more £1m-plus homes sold outside the capital than inside.
Surging house price growth, particularly since the pandemic began, means that 51% of all £1m-plus homes sold last year lay outside the capital, up from 45% in 2020 and 42% in 2019. Unprecedented demand from buyers, combined with a shortage of properties for sale, low mortgage interest rates and savings accrued during lockdowns means that a staggering 69% of homes sold for £1,000,000+ in England and Wales in 2021 were achieving seven figures for the first time.
And you can forget Mayfair because Mole Valley is now top of the property pops. This Surrey local authority, which includes the towns of Dorking and Leatherhead, saw the biggest increase in the percentage of £1m-plus sales since 2019. Last year, 12% of homes in the area sold for £1m or more, up from 6% of sales two years earlier. Of last year’s £1m-plus sales here, 74% of them made their owners property millionaires for the first time.
Although London boroughs including Barnet, Islington and Richmond upon Thames also saw some of the biggest leaps in the proportion of seven-figure sales in 2021, the lion’s share of the property hotspots were in the South East and East of England. These include the commuter-belt darlings of South Oxfordshire, Surrey’s Elmbridge, and Hertsmere, in Hertfordshire – these areas have seen a rush of buyers from the capital looking for homes with more inside and outside space. The Cotswolds were the winners in the South West as bidding wars stoked the market into a frenzy – 86% of homes sold in the Cotswold district last year breached the £1m mark for the first time.
The winners of the pandemic property game aren’t only in areas that are easily commutable to London, however. Rutland, in the East Midlands, saw a leap in the number of house price millionaires last year, as did Stratford-upon-Avon, in the West Midlands. In many local authorities, including Waltham Forest (London), Adur (West Sussex), West Devon, West Lancashire and Herefordshire, 100% of the homes sold in 2021 broke through the seven-figure barrier for the first time.
The current market has made seven figure sales increasingly common. The top of the market boom has meant expensive homes have changed hands more often. But price growth has also pushed homes valued at £800,000 to £900,000 a couple of years ago, over the £1,000,000 mark today. While we expect price growth to moderate over the course of this year, a £1,000,000 budget won’t stretch quite as far as it did pre-pandemic.
