In a report it revealed that 7,451 million pound properties were sold in the UK last year, compared with 4,725 in 2009.
The West Midlands million pound property market saw a 100% increase in sales from 47 in 2009 to 94 in 2010, with East Anglia’s increasing by 80% in that time.
The Greater London region recorded the highest number of million pound properties sold in 2010, with 4,501 sales, followed by the South East with 2,104.
London’s share of all million pound property sales in the UK rose from 52% in 2008 to 60% in 2010. Conversely, the South East region’s share has decreased from 31% in 2008 to 28% in 2010.
Kensington & Chelsea was the local authority which saw the highest number of sales with 908 million pound properties sold in 2010, an increase of 40% from 2009.
The two local authority areas of Kensington & Chelsea and City of Westminster accounted for 23% of total million pound property sales in the UK last year, slightly down from 25% in 2009.
Scotland and the East Midlands saw little change on the previous year and Wales saw a decrease of 33% in 2010, compared to the year before.
Paul Welch, managing director of Largemortgageloans.com, said that the research indicates that the million plus sector is leading the recovery in the overall UK property market.
“A flight to quality has seen international and domestic property purchasers increasing their investment in million pound properties and this could signal the recovery of the market as a whole,” he explained.
Ian Gray, mortgage manager at Largemortgageloans.com forecasted 2011 will see further disconnect between properties worth over and under a million pounds.
He said: “The million plus sector will not pull lower value properties up with it. Instead there will be a further disconnect between the two property markets as the government spending cuts put pressure on people’s finances.”
He added that the million plus sector would see prices rise by less than 5% by the end of 2011, with purchase levels remaining similar to last year.
