Million-pound home boom in Midlands

IT MAY not be a region renowned for glitz and glamour but the East Midlands is emerging as an unlikely hotbed for million-pound homes, figures suggest.

Sales of homes worth £1million or more rose by 67 per cent in the first half of last year, up to 40 from 24, as the number in London and the South fell, data from Lloyds Bank revealed.

It showed a widening regional divide in sales of million-pound homes, with the East Midlands and Wales emerging as hotspots, while Brexit uncertainty seemed to be putting off investors in London property.

Over the same period there was a doubling of million pound homes sold in Wales during the first half of 2018, up from nine in 2017.

Meanwhile, the sale of million-pound homes in London continued to fall – by 8 per cent from 3,940 homes in the first half of 2017 to 3,628 in the first half of this year. The capital’s market share of such homes also fell to 57 per cent, down 3 per cent from 60 per cent in 2017.

Changes to Stamp Duty on second homes introduced in 2016 are a likely contributing factor. Sarah Deaves, of Lloyds Bank, said: “The picture outside London seems to be moving in a different direction. It could be they are less likely to be used for investment, with purchasers buying properties to live in.”

Meanwhile Which?, the consumer group, revealed that nearly half of homeowners with a mortgage said they had lately been making overpayments to be mortgage-free sooner. Young owners with decades of payments ahead of them were particularly likely to have been making overpayments, with poor interest rates from savings accounts possibly driving the phenomenon.