More than twice as many homes worth over £1 million have been sold in the UK during the past year, research suggests.
Figures from Halifax have shown that 2,992 properties were sold for at least a seven-figure sum during the first six months of 2010 in the UK. This was 118% more than were sold in the same period during 2009.
This is still 18% lower than during the first six months of 2007, but the increase for million-pound properties was much higher than the housing market as a whole, where just 27% more homes changed hands.
Around 170,000 homes in the UK are worth at least £1 million, but sales of these properties made up just 0.9% of transactions - up from 0.5% in the first half of 2009.
In London, million-pound properties represented 4.5% of all transactions - the highest proportion in the UK.
London also saw the biggest percentage increase in million-pound sales, reporting a rise of 134%. The second highest rise was in the West Midlands at 127%, followed by the South East with 112% and East Anglia with 100%.
In Wales, there was a year-on-year decline of 25% for seven-figure sales, and in the North they dropped by 50%. In both areas, the number of sales was in single digits in 2009 and 2010.
