Fuelled by the seemingly never ending rise of property prices, the number of prime residential housing transactions have increased rapidly in the past 20 years.
The latest analysis from independent mortgage broker, Private Finance, shows that his comes despite a 27% fall in the total volume of residential transactions in England and Wales over the same period.
In 1999, there were 1,254 transactions for residential properties valued at £1 million and above. By 2018 this had increased more than twelve-fold to 15,445. The number of transactions for residential properties valued at £5 million or more increased at an even greater pace over the same period, up from just 22 to 323.
This comes despite the annual volume of all residential housing transactions across England and Wales falling from 1,194,025 in 1999 to less than 900,000 in 2018 (868,886).
£1 million in 2018 money is the equivalent of £587,414 in 1999 according to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator. England and Wales saw 5,162 residential property transactions valued at £587,414 and above in 1999, compared to 15,445 valued at £1 million and above in 2018. This increase in high-value property transactions is a sign of house prices having risen significantly faster than inflation over this period.
