£1m properties increasing faster in Scotland than rest of UK

The number of houses in Scotland worth at least £1 million is increasing nearly twice as fast as the UK average, according to new research which shows thousands more Scots have become so-called '˜property millionaires' over the past 18 months.

Picture Toby Williams

There are now more than 11,000 homes across the nation valued at least £1m, an increase of more than 2,500 since the last snapshot of the top of the housing market was carried out in summer 2016.

It means that throughout Scotland, the number of properties worth a seven-figure sum has jumped by 30.8 per cent, from 8,486 to 11,101. That accounts for around 0.4 per cent of Scotland’s housing stock.

Across the UK as a whole, the number of property millionaires has also risen over the same period, albeit at a more modest rate of 16.2 per cent, from 660,924 to 768,553.

The new research, carried out by the leading property website Zoopla, found that nearly half of the seven-figure properties in Scotland are to be found in Edinburgh, the only Scottish city to make a list of the top ten property hotspots in the UK, excluding London.

In August 2016, there were 3,477 houses in the capital worth at least £1m, according to Zoopla, but the number has since shot up to 4,759.

That represents an increase of 36.8 per cent, even higher than the Scotland-wide rate of growth, and means that £1m houses now make up around 2 per cent of the capital’s housing stock.

Unsurprisingly, the research revealed that more than half of the UK’s property millionaires are to be found in London. It accounts for 430,720 of the overall total, with the boroughs of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea home to the most expensive properties.

As well as the large concentrations of property millionaires in London and the south-east of England, Zoopla also found there are more than double the number of million-pound properties in Guildford, Surrey than there are across the whole of Wales.

Guildford was identified as the top million-pound property hotspot outside London, with 5,889 homes valued at £1m plus. Wales was found to have just 2,223 homes worth £1m or more.

Lawrence Hall, a spokesman for Zoopla, pointed out that despite the rise in the number of houses valued at £1m or more, such properties only accounted for 2.7 per cent of the country’s housing as a whole.

He said: “Whilst there might be a greater number of £1m plus properties than ever before, the data shows that they still only represent a small fraction of all UK housing stock.”

Zoopla released the research to mark the launch of its new property calculator tool which lets homeowners gauge when the value of their own property may reach the £1m mark.