Activity in the million pound plus housing market is “soaring” as wealthier buyers make moves to bigger houses or new locations, new analysis from Rightmove shows.

The property expert revealed that houses with an asking price of £1m and above are taking an average of 63 days to find a buyer, which is 18 days faster than this time last year.

The average time to find a buyer has dropped across the whole market for houses, but only by nine days, decreasing from 59 days in August last year to 50 days now.

Rightmove’s analysis indicated that million pound homes are also outperforming the rest of the property market for the number of sales being agreed.

In August, the number of £1m-plus houses finding a buyer rose by 105% annually, a higher rate of increase than the market as a whole, whereas sales agreed of houses increased by 61% year-on-year. Rightmove suggested this highlights the demand of million pound properties in the current market, with buyers willing to part with huge sums of money to buy larger homes.

“Houses in the million pound plus market have always taken longer to find buyers than the wider market because of their higher price points,” Rightmove director of property data, Tim Bannister, commented.

“Our new analysis shows that wealthier buyers who are fortunate enough to be able to move to bigger homes have been driving this sector of the market to a pace not seen since back in 2014.

“Available stock in this price bracket is up around 2% compared to this time last year, which is the first time since 2018 that there’s been an annual jump.

“However, given the surge in demand it’s still likely they’ll find themselves up against a lot of competition when they’re putting in offers.”

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