Property millionaire or thin air?

November 6, 2009 at 9:44 AM Zoopla Leave a comment

Price tag: £40 million, nine bedrooms, The Bishops Avenue, London

Years of booming house prices resulted in the creation of many ‘property paper millionaires’ who experienced rocket propelled property values and membership to the exclusive ‘property millionaires club’.

However this club has just shed a load of members…99,538 to be precise, leaving only 183, 630 today. That’s a 35% drop since November 2007 or another way of looking at it is 1 in 97 properties was valued at over £1 million two years ago but today that figure stands at just 1 in 150.

The hardest hit has been the North East; losing 83% of property millionaires in the past two years. Wales has also been hard hit, losing 56% of its property millionaires over the same period.

No surprise though that, despite the decline in house prices, certain parts of the country remain awash with property millionaires, notably London and the South East, where 81% of all million pound homes can be found.

The capital is home to 57% of all property millionaires, with the largest share residing in Kensington (W8) where 48% of all properties are worth over £1 million. Outside the capital, Virginia Water in Surrey leads the property millionaire stakes, with 28% of homes in the area worth more than a million pounds, compared to a national average of just 0.88%.

Click here for regional breakdown and areas with highest proportion of property millionaires.

FIVE PROPERTIES UNLIKELY TO FALL BELOW THE THRESHOLD ANY TIME SOON

1. £25.9m Courtenay Avenue, Highgate, London