The number of £5million-plus mortgages in the UK has jumped by nearly two-thirds as the super-rich took advantage of low-interest rates, new research has revealed. Figures from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) show the number of property sales with mortgage loan values of more than £5m lept from 169 in 2020 to 279 last year – a 65% increase.
Meanwhile, loans to buy properties costing more than £10m almost doubled, rising from 40 in 2020 – at the height of the Covid pandemic – to 72 in 2021. The average value of the £5m-plus mortgages was £9.5m in 2021, up from £8.9m year on year, and the total value last year was £2.7billion, an increase of £1.1bn from 2020.
It will be no surprise that the vast majority of this megabucks real estate is in and around London. Last year 220 mortgage loans of £5m-plus were secured on properties in Central and Greater London, compared with 49 in the other regions and 10 that were classified by the FCA as “unknown”.
