Mapped: England’s Property Millionaires 2020

The term ‘millionaire’ has long been reserved for those considered to have extreme wealth. A distant aspiration that was unattainable for much of the UK. However, as house prices continue to soar, banking giants Santander propose the million-pound marker is becoming less of a pipe dream for those at the top of the ladder, as this unthinkable price tag becomes increasingly associated with ‘modestly priced’ homes.

Further, in Santander’s report ‘Property Millionaires: The Growing Housing Divide’, Santander proclaim property prices in the UK will rise 23% by 2020 and 97% by 2030. An averagely priced home costing £280,000 today, would therefore cost around £344,000 five years from now and over half a million in fifteen years’ time.

Currently, almost half a million homes in the UK – representing 1.77% of the total housing stock – are valued at £1 million or more. By 2020, this is set to rise to almost 689,000 (2.37%), and by 2030, this is expected to reach 1.6 million or 5.14%. Overall, the number of UK properties worth at least £1 million is expected to more than triple between now and 2030.

This encouraged property specialists, Sellhousefast.uk to look forward to Britain’s property market in 2020, to better understand how the market might evolve and to share an insight on where England’s property millionaires are most likely located. To achieve this, SellHouseFast analysed Santander’s ‘Property Millionaires’ report in detail, to pull the projected number of £1 million+ houses in England by 2020, focusing on the 25 areas with the highest concentration.

It may come as no surprise that SellHouseFast found the highest concentration of million-pound houses to be in London and the South East of England. In fact, in 2020 it is predicted there will be 426,225 £1 million+ houses in London, and by 2030 the forecast is that some 25% of London’s housing stock will be priced at £1 million or more.

The next highest concentration of £1 million+ houses can be found in Surrey (37,871), followed by Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, at 21,905 and 13,662, respectively.

Comparably, counties with fewer projected million-pound houses include Bath and North East Somerset (2,346), Cheshire East (2,395) and City of Bristol, at 2,410. Although it is important to note that the entirety of the 25 counties listed and explored in this press release are among the highest projections across the UK.

In contrast, it is expected only 0.28% of the housing stock will be priced at more than £1 million in Northern Ireland by 2030 and under 1% in the North East, Yorkshire and The Humber, North West, Wales, Scotland and East Midlands.

Indicating by 2030, the UK will be even more starkly divided into the housing wealthy and the housing poor than it is now.

Methodology: Santander has estimated what they believe to be the main factors driving house prices since 1961, which are real incomes, changes in population, house construction and interest rates. Santander then estimated the influence and future values of those variables to forecast future house prices and affordability.