£1m homes unsqueezed by credit crunch

The sale of properties valued at £1 million or more in the UK are proving immune to the credit crunch, with sales continuing to rocket.

Some 8,257 million pound properties were sold across Great Britain in 2007, according to research from Halifax released today.

That is some 36 per cent more than the 6,057 sold the previous year.

Unsurprisingly, up to 78 per cent of the million pound property sales in Britain during 2007 were in London and or the south-east.

Kensington & Chelsea recorded the largest number of million pound property sales, with 961 properties breaking the symbolic barrier during last year.

Westminster, at 694 properties, recorded the second highest number of sales.

"Although there has been a marked increase in the number of million pound property sales over the past decade, a small number of local authority areas in London continue to account for the significant majority of £1 million sales," explained Gordon Edwards, managing director at Halifax Estate Agents.

Despite this, London's share of all million pound property sales has declined over the past ten years - with a number of million pound property clusters appearing in the south-east of England.

At the other end of the scale, Scotland delivered the fastest growth rate in million pound property sales over the past year, rising by 138 per cent from 144 sales in 2006 to 343 in 2007.

This was followed by the north east, at 136 per cent, and then the East Midlands, which saw sales up 111 per cent.

Furthermore, there were 1,508 sales of properties costing at least £2 million in 2007, a 49 per cent increase on the number sold in 2006 (1,012).

Regionally, 67 per cent of all £2 million properties sold were in London – with 1,017 recorded.

The south-east, at 294 £2 million property sales, recorded the second highest number of sales followed by the Scotland, with 66.

Chris O'Toole