Property millionaires still need a mortgage

Million pound homes are no longer only for the super wealthy - particularly in London.

Almost half of buyers who paid £1m or more for their home in 2015 took out a mortgage, the highest level in a decade.

Some 46% of buyers of £1m-plus homes used a mortgage in 2015, double the 23% at the start of the financial crisis in 2008, research from Hamptons International has claimed.

Typically a greater proportion of a more expensive property is bought without the need for a loan but the increasing use of mortgages reflects the view that £1m homes are no longer only for the super wealthy - particularly in London.

The rise in the use of mortgages to buy more expensive homes since the financial crash also reflects the low cost and increasing availability of finance as the economy has recovered and credit conditions have loosened.

With even well-off buyers struggling to get a mortgage during the 2008 downturn, just 23% of purchases of homes for £1m or more involved a loan.

In all but one year since the crisis, that proportion has risen.